But she cried out, wrapping her arms about him and, despite himself, he felt the moment when the invisible wave caught hold of her and ripped her away from him. So that, even though her body remained limp in his grasp, Che was gone again, fallen back into whatever abyss she had briefly clawed her way out of.

He laid her back down, scowling furiously, aware that Varmen was watching him, but not wanting to see the other Wasp's expression.

'You'll be wanting to hop one of the locals' barges, then,' was all the man said.

'They'd take me?'

Varmen shrugged. 'Can't hurt to ask. Maybe they'll try to kill us, or maybe they'll make us their new kings, who knows?'

'Us?' Thalric looked at him then.

The former Sentinel was sitting with one hand draped companionably across the pack-beetle's back. When he saw Thalric's scrutiny he shrugged, almost embarra.s.sed. 'Can't see you manhandling the poor girl all that way on your own, even if you did hop a barge.'

'And I thought you wanted me dead, because I was Rekef?'

'Oh, you? Just don't press your luck, is all I'll say. She seems decent enough, though.' Varmen smiled. 'Wouldn't have thought I'd find a Rekef man so caught up with one of the lesser kinden.' His grin broadened as Thalric rounded on him, rising to the bait. 'Don't take offence at that, Rekef. We all need something to keep us human, right?'

The Masters of Khanaphes regarded Seda stonily.

'Little Empress,' said one of the women, 'we know why you have come. You have been expected.'

'Really?' Seda replied. 'And yet I feel anything but welcome.'

'Do you think that what you seek here should be easy?' the man asked acidly. 'We have h.o.a.rded our power for a thousand years, so would you resent us taking steps to discourage the unworthy?'

Seda gave a hard smile, gazing up at them amid the leaping, bluish light. 'Tell me why I am here, then?'

'You are here to learn,' the other woman told her.

'It is creditable.' The first nodded slowly. 'You have discovered in yourself the last drop of magic known to your people, but you do not know what to do with it. You have been diligent in seeking enlightenment, until it has led you to us, the first lords and ladies of mankind. You wish to learn from us.' They spoke softly, the Masters of Khanaphes, but their words created vast echoes that resounded felt but unheard about the cavernous s.p.a.ces of this, their resting place. She was at the heart of it here, now, where all the remnants of ancient power had been h.o.a.rded and husbanded. Her body thrilled to it, telling her that she belonged here at their feet, as their humblest slave and servant, if only they would consent to let her know . . .

Seda nodded along with those thoughts. She saw Gjegevey staring at her worriedly, and wondered what it was she had woken him from. What const.i.tuted a Woodlouse nightmare?

When he saw that he had caught her eye, the old man shook his head. He must feel the leaden weight of their power and of all the ages they had stored up here. If they extended their hand to him, she mused, then perhaps he would already be kneeling before them in obeisance.

They were leaning on her, perhaps without even intending to, pressuring her into following the path that they had already set out. No doubt they could not even imagine her saying no. Their confidence in her eventual decision was complete.

Was almost complete. For, of course, she the other one who had stood here and also been given this choice she had refused.

And I do not kneel. Not even before the Masters of Khanaphes.

'I think you underestimate the extent of my studies,' she declared. Seeing their disdainful expressions, she added quickly, 'Oh, Masters, I cannot pretend to match your many centuries. I can only guess at your long histories that the turning of the ages has overwritten. No doubt, when the world was young, you held the reins of power and the other kinden cl.u.s.tered around your feet like children. Perhaps, after that, you idled on your thrones while young races, those that we now think of as ancient and occult, squabbled for the sc.r.a.ps from your tables. Certainly I cannot guess how many centuries have pa.s.sed since you last truly stirred yourselves or exercised your power. Until the Scorpions came to lay waste your city, that is, and you were forced to it. And which hand set those barbarians at your gates, if not my Empire's? Who could have then guessed what Brugan's foolishness would unearth?'

Her own words did not raise the same great, soundless echoes that theirs did. They raised only sharp, real echoes, that whiplashed across the faces of the Masters, for n.o.body had ever addressed to them in such a manner since the dawn of time.

'I am not here to learn,' she explained, speaking into the ringing silence. 'I am not here to sit at your feet and be satisfied with whatever pittance you grant me. I am the Empress of the Wasps, and I am no mere subject, not even for the first lords and ladies of mankind. You know what I am here for.'

There were more of them appearing now, their huge figures striding towards her between the pillars. They eyed her impa.s.sively, arrogantly, but she stared them down. And do I detect the faintest quiver of doubt?

Then one of the men sighed heavily and said, 'We are sorry that you have come such a way only for this. To stand before the Masters of Khanaphes and dare to make demands is only foolishness.' He did not sound angry, though, just disappointed. Even so, she felt a surge of their power building up, inexorable as an earthquake, readying itself to blot her out so utterly that the world would not even remember her name.

'Such promise,' one of the women murmured. 'She could have learned so much of our histories, such as no savage has ever known, and now this . . . Such a waste . . .'

'Majesty.' Gjegevey's voice quavered, and Seda realized that he was terrified almost out of his mind. Had he been here alone, he would have thrown himself before the Masters and begged for mercy, but she gave him strength and for her sake, for loyalty's sake, he clung to his staff and held his ground.

Several of the Masters were already turning away, not even interested enough to witness her being destroyed. The looming tidal wave of their power a slightest handful of all they had saved up here, and yet still so much, such a vast fist to crush such small flies was cresting all around them.

'You have your grand histories,' Seda conceded, betraying nothing but cool arrogance in her voice and stance. 'But I have an Empire.'

She could sense their amus.e.m.e.nt at such a proclamation, and it bought her a little more time time to educate those who had thought she had come to serve them.

'At the lightest gesture of my army, half your city was razed. It would take a fraction of the soldiers now under my command to obliterate it from the face of the world. If I do not return safely to them, then that is exactly what I will do. More, they will bring in machines and Mole Cricket-kinden and they will dig. They shall tear apart the earth itself, until they uncover these halls, and then the sun shall become your only ceiling, and for all your power, and however many of my subjects you slay or drive mad, they shall take you eventually, and lead you through the streets of Capitas in chains. And so your histories, all of your histories, shall come to an end. I shall tear up every stone that bears your name or your likeness, and then I shall salt the earth itself so that your power may never revive.'

She sensed the ma.s.sive hammer of their will poised in delicate balance above her.

'You cannot think-' one of them began, but Seda did not let him finish.

'If you harm me, then this shall come to pa.s.s. It shall come to pa.s.s even if you simply deny me. I am the Empress of the Wasps, and I am the inheritor of the ancient powers, by blood and by shadow, and there is only one thing I require from you. Grant that one thing, and I shall leave you to your darkness and your stone.'

This was the fulcrum moment on which the future hinged, with their power poised right above her, an invisible, irresistible weight that could crush her mind, send her stark mad, and none of her tricks of magic or statesmanship could withstand it. But we are Wasps, and we do not beg. I shall have this on my terms or not at all, for there is no other path fit for an Empress.

Gjegevey stood very close, almost clinging to her arm, his face sheened with sweat in this unwholesome blue light. She radiated strength, though. Even if, at her greatest, she seemed a mere gnat in the face of their might, she stood straight and defied them, and held firm to her demands.

Had it not been for that other woman, had it not been for those stolen dreams that had visited Seda so long ago, so far away those dreams of the same echoing halls, the lamps, the solemn faces of the Masters then she would have suc.u.mbed. True, had it not been for those dreams she would never have come at all, but in that moment of crisis, facing the vast depths of the Masters' strength, she still held to that one sc.r.a.p of knowledge. They were defeated before, out-thought, tricked from their prey. The Beetle girl escaped them. Well, I shall go one better.

'See my Empire,' she told them, and then filled her own mind with it, all of its artifice and energy, its rapacious hunger, its unending hordes of soldiers, its fierce youthful fire. She summoned up all her own confidence, her belief in her people and in herself, and her unbridled and all-consuming need to control: to control herself, control her people, control the ancient powers, control the world. She did not know it, but she was grinning at them like a monster. She smiled like a tyrant and, just as their ancient power had weighed on her with its demands of Worship us! so she turned her mind on them with all the force of her Imperial will: Submit to me!

The air was full of soundless fury, of invisible fire, so that Gjegevey flinched from every moment of it. But in the physical world a great silence had fallen, and Seda's grin simply widened, and the Masters were suddenly uncertain. The world of the new and the vital was brought here before them, incomprehensible and threatening.

And, at the very last, an answer: 'What is it that you want, then?' said one of the women. 'Name it.'

'Validation,' Seda told them. 'Confirmation. You, with your great legacy, must accept me as your heir in the modern world. Just a nod, Masters just the smallest nod. All of us here know how power is defined by such symbols.' She caught a glimpse of Gjegevey's face, and he was wide-eyed in horror, but she had come too far now to turn aside. 'Pa.s.s on to me the mantle,' she insisted.

The Masters of Khanaphes, and there were many more of them now, exchanged slow glances, and Seda knew that thoughts must be pa.s.sing between them, not by Art or even magic, but by virtue of their having spent so many centuries in each other's company.

'You claim to be the heir to the Age of Lore,' one said at last, and when Seda nodded impatiently, added, 'You wish us to crown you, to acknowledge you.'

'You are the first-ever great magicians,' Seda declared. 'I will have you name me as your successor.'

'And are you prepared to share your throne?' asked another woman there.

Seda's eyes narrowed. 'With you?'

There was a murmur of laughter amongst them, more evident in the eyes than from anything she actually heard. 'You shall never be our peer, little Empress, but perhaps you are fit to be named queen of what scant magic this withered age still owns. With our blessing you might do great things might even turn back the sands a little and bring back some shadow of the old days. We cannot bless you, though, unless we also bless your sister.'

The Wasp Empress stared at her, and it was a few moments before she could form the words: 'I have no sister. Maxin killed them all, years ago. I am the last of my blood.'

At her bafflement, the amus.e.m.e.nt among the Masters spread. 'She was not born your kin, but she is your sister now. You and she were bloodied by the same thorn. In the instant that you attained your power, she came to hers. And, though her understanding is behind yours, you are yet walking in her footsteps.'

Seda glared at them all. 'Explain yourselves!' she demanded.

'You have dreamt of these halls of ours,' another of the Masters interposed. 'But your sister was here before you. She broke our spells and made demands of us, though she was not so ambitious as you. You are joined, you and she, and though we bless you and grant you our acknowledgement, yet we must grant her nothing less. Your lives are intertwined, but only one of you can triumph in the end. You have a rival, Little Empress, and she is watching you even now.'

Che jerked back, trying to escape from the dream, trying to be anywhere but that subterranean tomb as the Wasp Empress glanced furiously about. I am not here, she had to remind herself. This is just a vision. This is nothing- Seda's eyes found hers, and there was a physical jolt of recognition and enmity between them, whereupon Che stopped lying to herself.

'I see her,' the Wasp growled, and she thrust out a hand towards Che, as though to sting her across the hundreds of miles that separated them. There came no searing light and heat, though, and Che was just beginning to relax when Seda bared her teeth in a savage snarl, and a wave of darkness pulsed out from her, faster than any eye could follow. Che had only a moment to register its approach before she was struck. Then a hammerblow of the mind detached her from her disembodied viewpoint and cast her far away, down into endless night.

Part Three.

The Huntress.

Twenty.

Tynisa had been left to her own devices amid the strange bustle of Lowre Cean's compound.

The old man himself seemed to drift between a dozen baffling pastimes, as though to actually commit wholly to any one occupation would be the death of him. Sometimes he was closeted with his little singers, the sight of which still made Tynisa's flesh crawl. At other times he would go off travelling through the snows with one band of reprobates or another, abandoning his servants and guards and vanishing for days. Tynisa was given to understand that all those armed bands that visited his estate were not, after all, bandits, or not only bandits, but also war veterans whom Lowre Cean had either commanded or fought alongside. Why the old tactician took the whole thing so personally, and what the precise relationship of duty and obligation was, Tynisa was not sure. n.o.body spoke about it.

At other times, Cean would retreat into his workroom, where he would whittle away at tiny figures of soldiers and peasants and n.o.bles, all carved out of a wood that could be found nowhere within a hundred miles, and that he had shipped in by infrequent barge. He would cook sometimes, inventing new concoctions and feeding all comers. He would tend his kadith ponds, adding his own blends of herbs and gra.s.ses for the insect larvae to knit into their coc.o.o.ns, or he would retreat to his library and read some dusty scroll of centuries-old poetry.

He did not practise with weapons, or take a bow down to the b.u.t.ts to shoot at targets, as many of his people did. He did not talk about the war. He did not even seem to directly give orders to his guards or servants. They just went about their business, using their own best judgement.

Amidst all of this, Tynisa was left to amuse herself and she found that, rather than this leading to frustration and despair, she was oddly liberated by it all. Certainly she was waiting for Salme Alain to call upon her, as she was sure he would. Certainly she still had her great purpose, of bringing word of Salma's end to his mother, who did not seem to want to know. Still, until that part of her life interfered again, she was a free agent. The winter world seemed to have forgotten about her, and so had her own driving demons. Even the shadows grew infrequent, and sometimes whole days could go by without her glimpsing that hunched, accusing figure in grey robes, or her father's flayed corpse.

One morning she awoke in a sudden panic, hearing voices outside. For long moments she could not understand why the very sound of them had abruptly recalled to her all the guilt and fear that she had been hiding from. Then at last she placed it: a Collegiate accent, clear as day.

Outside in the courtyard she saw a covered wagon drawn by a brown-sh.e.l.led beetle, and sitting on the driver's board was a Beetle-kinden, who was currently bawling at the top of her voice at some of Lowre's retainers. She was a stranger, and yet Tynisa felt she knew the woman instantly. She had seen plenty of that type in Collegium: stocky, bluff, forceful women striding about the city streets or College halls. They were independent, resourceful and practical, constantly making and selling and disputing, and always being loud.

The sight of such a woman here, wrapped in two layers of woollen robes and a long cloak, was bewildering, and Tynisa approached her cautiously.

'Excuse me,' she said, but the woman was giving strident directions to someone about what to feed her beetle on, and so Tynisa had to repeat herself, even louder.

'What is it?' the woman snapped, obviously impatient with anything not immediately concerned with her current purpose.

'I was wondering . . . what can you be doing here.'

The woman stared at her, and suddenly let out a bark of outsize laughter. 'A voice from home, as I live and breathe!' she declared. 'A strange-looking Collegiate you make, too. I'd take you for a native, else. Sammi, come and look at this!'

From the round back of the wagon came an elderly Gra.s.shopper-kinden with thinning grey hair and a frame that was all angles.

'Sammi?' queried Tynisa weakly.

'Well, it's what is it? Tse Mae, or something very like it,' the woman admitted, fighting with the man's name. 'But Sammi works for me, and so I get to call him that. Fordwright, by the way. Hardy Fordwright, Master of the College.'

Tynisa shook the proffered hand uncertainly. 'Tynisa, student of the same. But, Mistress Fordwright, how long have you been here in the Commonweal?'

'What is it . . . seven years now?' Fordwright asked her companion.

'Nine since we met, Harde,' Tse Mae replied, mangling her name equally as much as she had mangled his.

'On my life, is it really?' Fordwright looked genuinely surprised.

'But what are you doing here?' Tynisa pressed.

'Oh, old man Lowre's our patron, don't you know,' the Beetle woman explained. By now their animal was being unhitched and watered, and Tse Mae was arranging for the wagon to be put under cover. Fordwright beamed at him, then explained, 'You see, Sammi and me are here about a piece of research You've heard of the Alchemical Theorem?' and she went on as if Tynisa had, regardless. 'I was a chemical artificer back home, and Sammi here has spent his days cooking up elixirs and potions for the credulous. So I can put a bunch of ingredients together for a particular effect, and Sammi can do the same. The thing is that I can tell you why mine works, and he can tell you why his works, and neither of us agree why it works, but we both agree that it does.'

When Tynisa failed to react with immediate enthusiasm Fordwright pressed on impatiently. 'But don't you see? It's a process and result that makes sense both to Apt and Inapt minds, even if my sense doesn't work for him, and his doesn't work for me. Give me another few years and I'll stand before the College and tell them that I have found the exact field of study that Apt.i.tude may have arisen from, and it's still being practised here in the Commonweal.'

This last was thrown over her shoulder, as she was striding off towards Lowre Cean's main hall, letting Tynisa and Tse Mae trail in her wake.

'And Lowre Cean is an alchemist too, is he?'

Fordwright beamed back at Tynisa. 'A little. He dabbles. Dabbles in just about everything, in fact. He's a patron of just about every art you can name. Painters and poets, itinerant Roach-kinden balladeers, stargazers and hocus-pocus merchants, and people who'll tell your future from your shadow. Lucky for Sammi and me that he's up for supporting some serious inquiry, as well as all those quacksalvers. My guess?' Even her colossal voice managed a crude sort of whisper. 'The old boy is up for anything that'll take his mind off the war.'

'But he was a hero,' Tynisa protested weakly.

Fordwright made a disrespectful sound that demonstrated precisely what she thought of war heroes. What she said made sense, Tynisa considered. Collegium's great figures were noted for their intellect, their diplomacy, their discoveries and inventions, and they left the glorifying of war to other kinden. In Tynisa, though, the fighting urge was strong: that need to test herself and her blade. She found in herself an unchallengeable insistence that all true heroes were warriors living and dying by the sword.

Like Salma. Like my father. Thus conjured, they both hovered just out of sight.

The young man who had fetched her from Gaved's home came to find her once again shortly afterwards. She had never even learned his name, about which he seemed to be unusually discreet. Her eventual conclusion was that the youth was some b.a.s.t.a.r.d by-blow of the old prince's, and that the Commonwealers had quaint ideas about fidelity and paternity.

'His Highness has ordered there to be a formal dinner tonight,' the youth informed her. 'Your presence would be welcomed.'

This would be the third such formal occasion since she had become Lowre Cean's guest. The old man usually ate by himself, at odd times and wherever he happened to be pursuing his own interests, but sometimes the prince-major would surface in him, and suddenly all his servants and followers would be galvanized into a culinary orgy of preparation, whilst those wayfarers lucky enough to be pa.s.sing through would find themselves made guests of honour. Tynisa a.s.sumed that this time it was Hardy Fordwright and Tse Mae who had prompted the festivities.

During warmer months, the nameless young man explained, such feasts were held outside, under the stars, with places set so that everyone, from the prince's household down to the lowliest fieldhand, would take some part in the meal. During the winter, however, Lowre would ensure that some gift of food or drink reached each family that owed its livelihood to his presence, but he himself would feast within the doubled walls of his hall.

After sunset she made her way to the long hall, knowing that the meal would not commence for some time. She found Fordwright and her companion there already, plainly looking forward to the hospitality, among a handful of others who were guesting there too: a Dragonfly n.o.blewoman, a Mercer out on business for the throne, and a Gra.s.shopper woman in piecemeal armour who looked to Tynisa like a mercenary captain.

However, when Lowre Cean himself made his appearance, just as the servants were bringing through bowls of hot kadith, there was someone walking beside him that had Tynisa leaping up from her place.

'Alain!' she cried out, heedless of propriety. She had nearly cried 'Salma!' instead, just like before, which would have made her seem a complete fool.

Salme Alain grinned broadly at her. 'And here she is,' he declared. 'You have taken some finding, Maker Tynise, though I place the blame for that at my mother's door. Forgive me my absence, but I have been ensuring that our southern border is safe. The Turncoat tells me that he showed you exactly what we have to deal with there.'

It took her a moment before she remembered that 'the Turncoat' was Gaved, but then she nodded, recalling the wretched ruin that had been Siriell's Town.

Lowre Cean lowered himself into his appointed seat. A formal Dragonfly meal was set out much like a Fly-kinden feast: long, low tables, and everyone sitting on cushions on the floor, with the prince's place in the middle of one of the long sides. A moment later, servants began showing other people to their seats. Tynisa found herself at Lowre's left-hand side, balancing the nameless messenger seated on his right. Alain, who had presumably displaced some previously planned guest, was at one end of the table, seemingly as far from Tynisa as he could get. That seemed odd to her, and she turned to Lowre to ask about it. She caught the old man gazing at Salme Alain with a strange expression. If the two of them had not been Dragonfly n.o.bles, and if Lowre was not so beholden to the Salmae, Tynisa might have read hostility there.

Alain was already talking animatedly with the people on either side of him, clearly making some new friends. He glanced at Tynisa once or twice, but without raising his voice more than would have been polite, there was no way he could speak to her. For her part, Tynisa picked at her meal in silence. She was aware that she must be missing something important, some unspoken axiom of Dragonfly society. She was used to reading people at a glance, sketching an instant picture of their motives and intentions, and it was not that the Commonwealers were too subtle for her, who had dealt with Imperial bureaucrats and Spider-kinden Aristoi in her time. It was simply that their language of face and gesture was different, following a code that she was still learning. While she tried to accustom herself to their ways, there were realms of suggestion and implication that were nevertheless pa.s.sing her by.