Twenty-Five.

'There's post waiting with your lunch, sir.'

Totho nodded absently, brushing past the man. He was in a poor mood. He had spent a restless night thinking towards some way of reclaiming Che, but reaching no conclusions. He only hoped that Amnon was having better luck with his chosen Collegiate woman.

Of course he is, the little voice inside Totho the one he had been born with, that had started speaking to him as soon as he had been old enough to realize what he was piped up again. Amnon was big, handsome, charismatic. He would not need to do much to get the woman to notice him. Life had been kind to Amnon. Totho doubted the big man had ever had to work too hard at getting anything.

I have had to work, though. It felt bitter. Even in Collegium, which prided itself on its industry, the dream was to become rich enough not to have to work. That dream was inherited from the past, when Beetles had worked and Moth-kinden had spent their time in idleness, living off the sweat of their slaves. The dream was further honed by the effortless lives of the Spider-kinden Aristoi, who had nothing better to do in life than intrigue against one another. Whereas I have had to work for everything Whereas I have had to work for everything. Delivered to an orphanage by unknown parents, tinkering with mechanisms from the age of five, competing against dozens of others for a College place that would have been his for the asking, if only he had been some rich magnate's son. Yes, he had worked: to get where he was now, he had not only got his hands dirty, he had steeped them in blood to the elbows.

I rearmed the world, equipped it in my own image. I destroyed an army. I halted the Empire, drove them out of Szar. But he did not like to think of Szar. He was not yet ready for that. If I had been some magnate's son, I would have needed to do nothing, to secure my future. To come this far I have had to wade hip-deep in bad choices and bad deeds. And still she turns away from me If I had been some magnate's son, I would have needed to do nothing, to secure my future. To come this far I have had to wade hip-deep in bad choices and bad deeds. And still she turns away from me.

Lunch was set out for him, but he spared it barely a look. There were some sealed doc.u.ments beside it, and a roll of cloth tape and a Fly-kinden man. 'You're post, are you?' He raised an eyebrow.

'Tirado,' the man confirmed. 'Message from Factor Meyr, your eyes only.'

'Well, get out until I've finished eating,' Totho snapped, deciding that c.o.c.ky Fly-kinden annoyed him. Some of them seemed to think that rules and authority didn't apply to them. The Fly looked put out, but he stepped down from the table and flitted out through the door. Totho sat down, pushing the food away despite his recent words. The papers were all manifests, he could look those over later. He broke each seal, to be sure, then laid them to one side.

The tape was another matter, a little spark of daylight showing through the clouds that were on his mind. He reached into his pouch and took out one of the Iron Glove's newest artifacts. It was hand-sized, and looked mostly like a very small drum with a winding handle, as though someone had decided that even a drum was too complex to learn to play, and had therefore invented an automatic one. Where the handle joined the drum there was a spidery little arrangement of teeth and tiny pins.

Totho took the reel of cloth, a woven strip barely an inch across. It was an ugly piece of work, the threads jumbled together without pattern, looking like some clothier's reject remnant. With the utmost care, he fed the end of it into the teeth of the machine until it caught. He then wound it through a few inches, listening carefully. The sound that echoed from the drum was almost too faint to hear. Patiently, Totho fiddled with it, turning the clamps to increase the s.p.a.ce inside the drum itself. In this small exercise of his skill, he had forgotten about Che or Amnon, or all the rest of it. The intricacy of the device itself consumed him.

He wound the cloth back, and then began winding it forwards again, letting the delicate pins brush against the rugged fabric, and their vibrations carry down to the drum itself. Into the room, small and distant-sounding, came a voice.

It was a voice Totho knew well, after two years' a.s.sociation and more. It was the voice of the senior partner of the Iron Glove, and the man after whom the entire enterprise was named.

'h.e.l.lo, Totho,' said the scratchy tones.

'h.e.l.lo, Dariandrephos,' Totho replied, even though there was n.o.body there to hear him. A sense of wonder still came to him, although they had been using these similophone tapes for two months now. It was the secret of the Iron Glove. Only he and Drephos possessed the drum-like similophone ears, and so far Drephos had the one weaver, the machine that took the sound of his voice and wove it into cloth. He was working, however, on a model that was portable.

The winding handle carried the tape further, projecting Drephos's voice, dry and tendays old, into the factora in Khanaphes. Totho was careful to keep his speed steady, so as to pitch the man's voice right. When the first similophone tape had been heard, he had been left in st.i.tches, making Drephos squeak and drawl as he tried to match the pace.

'First,' came the tiny voice, 'you should know that the Empire has made some advances in retroengineering the Solarnese-style aeromotives that we sold them. I understand that they will be in a position to upgrade their Spearflight models within the next two months, at this rate. Our new design of rotary piercer has exceeded expectations to the extent that I am uncomfortable with allowing them onto the market without consideration, and I would value your input when you return, which I trust will be shortly. Matters with the Empire are likely to reach a head soon, one way or another.

'Less importantly, our fourth factory a.s.sembled and test-fired the first greatshotter design yesterday. The results were remarkable, but the damage to the prototype was such that it required complete disa.s.sembly: the barrel integrity does not stand up to the pressures generated. I am loath to look for new materials right now, but aviation steel, in the thickness required, does not offer the absorbent flexibility ...'

Totho let the details wash over him, considering each, letting them settle in his mind. This This was the important thing. In such a wash of technical minutiae he felt happy, as he always had, and such imprecise calculations as the affections of Cheerwell Maker could be temporarily shunted aside. At this late age, in this foreign land, he had found for himself a surrogate father. Oh, Dariandrephos was a monster, for certain: he had no conscience, no humanity, no regard whatsoever for any who could not contribute to the world of artifice. He would destroy Khanaphes without a thought if he needed to, because he considered the city a waste of stone and wood and flesh. Drephos was all these things, but he was a man whose priorities struck a chord in his protege and he valued Totho. For the sake of Totho's artificing Drephos indulged him like a spoilt child, even when Totho's preoccupations went beyond the older halfbreed's comprehension. was the important thing. In such a wash of technical minutiae he felt happy, as he always had, and such imprecise calculations as the affections of Cheerwell Maker could be temporarily shunted aside. At this late age, in this foreign land, he had found for himself a surrogate father. Oh, Dariandrephos was a monster, for certain: he had no conscience, no humanity, no regard whatsoever for any who could not contribute to the world of artifice. He would destroy Khanaphes without a thought if he needed to, because he considered the city a waste of stone and wood and flesh. Drephos was all these things, but he was a man whose priorities struck a chord in his protege and he valued Totho. For the sake of Totho's artificing Drephos indulged him like a spoilt child, even when Totho's preoccupations went beyond the older halfbreed's comprehension.

The tape kept ravelling on, and Totho leant back in his chair and listened to it as though it was music: the pinnacle of artificing used to bring to him the furthest advances in artifice. It was how life should always work, and so seldom did. And if he missed any of it, or wanted to hear it all again, then he could do so. He could recoil the tape and wind it through again and again. Drephos's words, anybody's words, need never be lost. The Iron Glove had found a way to cheat time and death.

We should take one to Collegium, record some of Stenwold's speeches ...

At last the report came to its close, leaving Totho smiling slightly, still, at the ingenuity of it. Belatedly he remembered the Fly-kinden, now kept waiting for an hour or more. With a scowl, Totho called him in. Tirado had obviously been reminded about being a good Iron Glove employee in the interim, because he saluted properly this time.

'What's happened to Meyr?' Totho demanded.

'Nothing when I left, but that's a state of affairs not likely to continue,' Tirado reported. He handed over Meyr's wrapped slate. Totho was still slouching easily as he started to read but, after only a few words, he sat bolt upright and started paying real attention.

It was late in the day when she finally broke away from the Scriptora.

She had expected the guards, after what Ethmet had said. She had expected to be thrown into the cells to await the Masters' pleasure a pleasure that would surely see her rot before it was made manifest. She had come to believe that the Masters' bloodlines might still echo within Khanaphes, in men like Ethmet or women like the Mother, but not their voices or footsteps. That was the fiction that the city was built on and that perhaps Ethmet even believed that the Masters would one day come forth again and take up the reins. It was a foundation that was concrete as long as it was believed, that would be shifting sand the moment it was doubted.

He had shown her the book, which had made all the difference. She was becoming used to sharing her life with the miraculous, but the book made the miraculous commonplace. Ethmet had taken her to a small room in the Scriptora where stonemasons were working. They were carving out the hieroglyphs that infested Khanaphes like indecipherable locusts, and they had for reference a book.

They had not liked her being there, those craftsmen: they were members of a select and occult fraternity. However, Ethmet's word, his mere glance, had been law. They had given the book over to her and she had opened its pages, and her mind had jolted at what she had seen.

She had thought it might be something simple, perhaps with a text in hieroglyphs set out on one leaf, and letters on the opposite, or even like a reading primer for children, the glyphs drawn large and their meaning inscribed beneath them. But no.

The pages of the book had been layered end to end in hieroglyphs, drawn in large, bold strokes, page after page after page. Her eyes had been bombarded by their cryptic images, but after that first page she had ceased to see them as impenetrable symbols, but simply as the words that they represented. There was no apparent meaning to the book, no story, no sense of grammar, nothing but a cascade of images but, as she turned the last page, she had looked from it to the walls and read: 'All praise to the Masters, the lifeblood of the Jamail, the sweet rains and the rich earth,' and the words had struck her in the heart.

She had looked to Ethmet, and then at the masons, and she had known, beyond the frailest doubt: They cannot see this. Ah, no, their own history is opaque to them, but I can read it They cannot see this. Ah, no, their own history is opaque to them, but I can read it. The pages of the book had worked a magic in her. Wherever she now looked, the stories of Khanaphes unravelled their meanings for her, on every wall.

But not on every stone the individual words, yes, the stories no. As she looked upon the greater book that was the city, she saw the cruel theft that time had committed. On the walls of the Scriptora, on the elder buildings, were tracked the countless voices of ancient Khanaphes. Merely in pa.s.sing from the masons' room back to the library, her eyes snagged on every pa.s.sageway, at each turning or pillar: 'In this year the great Batheut ventured into the Alim with his nine hundred ...'; 'Of grain, fourteen baskets; of oats, nine baskets more, and he shall ...'; 'And she sang the songs of her far homeland, and all who listened were ...' until she had to almost shut her eyes to keep out the thronging meanings that would not leave her alone. Where new construction had been made, though, the script fell into babble: 'She boat sun leap shoe coral great if ...'

And then she understood: They have lost their ancient language. It died when their Apt.i.tude was born. Generation by generation, those carving hands became more Apt, less arcane, until they were merely going through the rotes. In their secret little brotherhood, they copy and they carve, but it has no meaning any longer They have lost their ancient language. It died when their Apt.i.tude was born. Generation by generation, those carving hands became more Apt, less arcane, until they were merely going through the rotes. In their secret little brotherhood, they copy and they carve, but it has no meaning any longer. The informative had long since become the merely decorative.

And Ethmet knew it. She could see it in his face. He looked at her and there was hope in his eyes, a terrible, misplaced hope. It was as though her reading of the book of glyphs had revealed the key to his expressions as well.

She had a.s.sumed he would keep her, but he had let her go. He believed, despite his Apt.i.tude, in destiny. He believed she would come back to him voluntarily, to fulfil whatever role he wished of her. As an Inapt Beetle, her very curse had made her his messiah. Her mind was now reeling as she set off for the Place of Foreigners. She did not dare look at the pyramid, with those statues placed irregularly about its top, for fear of the stories it might tell her. She was painfully aware that she had failed Petri and Kadro, and that her own selfishness was to blame, once more.

As she reached the archway leading through to the emba.s.sies, something stopped her, snapping her back to the here-and-now. She found her hand on her sword-hilt, yet no danger in sight. What is it? What is it? Some sense she had not known before was calling to her ... Some sense she had not known before was calling to her ... No, I have known this. The desert, the Scorpion raid No, I have known this. The desert, the Scorpion raid.

'Achaeos?' she asked softly, feeling an edge of tension that was external to her, the result of some other's keener senses.

Someone moved in the shadow of the archway. Up until then, she had not so much as glimpsed him. When she saw him she started to relax, but whatever had alerted her kept its hook in her twisted tight. It was one of the Vekken, she realized. As usual she could not have said which one.

'Were you waiting for me?' she began.

He stared at her blankly and she saw, so very late, that his sword was clear of its sheath, blackened with pitch. Her reactions caught up then, her hand clenching on her own hilt as she looked into his hating eyes.

There was a rapid flutter of wings, and Trallo was standing beside her, all smiles. 'Ah, there you are, been looking all over. You do wander off some, Bella Cheerwell!' His hollow cheer washed over them both, but Che guessed at once that he knew where she had spent the day. The Vekken looked from her to the Fly-kinden, then stalked away without a word. He had already told her more than he had intended. Something has snapped in the Vekken's amba.s.sadorial calm Something has snapped in the Vekken's amba.s.sadorial calm.

'Trallo, what's going on?'

'You're asking me?' me?' The little man shook his head. 'Nothing's happened at the emba.s.sy. The professors are all off looking at rocks down by the river, for reasons unknown to man or insect. Oh, and Sieur Gorget is being more insufferable than usual, but apart from that ...' He was staring after the Vekken amba.s.sador, rubbing at his beard. The little man shook his head. 'Nothing's happened at the emba.s.sy. The professors are all off looking at rocks down by the river, for reasons unknown to man or insect. Oh, and Sieur Gorget is being more insufferable than usual, but apart from that ...' He was staring after the Vekken amba.s.sador, rubbing at his beard.

'Manny is ...?'

'Oh, it might be that Bella Rakespear received a certain Khanaphir beau this morning, in her own chambers, but more than that I have no knowledge of.'

Che managed to raise a small smile at that. They pa.s.sed through into the Place of Foreigners, and she took a seat by the pond. I need to speak with the Vekken, but I first need to know what's set them off I need to speak with the Vekken, but I first need to know what's set them off. She remembered that brief moment of confrontation. This is more than injured pride This is more than injured pride.

'That's twice you've been there for me, Trallo,' she noted. It was a train of thought she had stored away a while ago, now dragged out into the sunlight again. The little man merely shrugged, and did not look surprised when she continued, 'I don't recall you asking me for any pay recently.'

'Well, you know ...' he replied, but he was waiting for what she said next.

'You're a business-minded sort.' She wanted to pick her words with more care, but it had been such a long day. 'The plan was that you'd be back in Solarno by now. Talk to me, Trallo.'

'You've a complaint about my services?' he enquired, light-heartedly, but with a brittle edge.

'Quite the opposite. Talk to me.'

He smiled. 'You're a popular woman,' he explained. 'You have a lot of friends, and they're anxious that you're well.'

'We're not talking about Berjek and the others. I know that much,' she said flatly. 'Trallo, are you taking orders from the Ministers?'

'From the ...?' She saw in his expression immediately that she was wrong. He laughed out loud, in fact. 'They already have a thousand Khanaphir watching you, Bella Cheerwell. They don't need me to keep an eye on things as well.'

'Then ...' And who was it who pulled me from the tent of the Fir-eaters for all the good it did him? And I never stopped to ask what he was doing there so deep in the Marsh Alcaia, so close to me And who was it who pulled me from the tent of the Fir-eaters for all the good it did him? And I never stopped to ask what he was doing there so deep in the Marsh Alcaia, so close to me. A terrible bleakness settled on her. 'Are you taking the Empire's coin, Trallo?' she asked.

'Not a bit of it,' he told her. 'Bella Cheerwell, I like you, so I only take coin from those I think have your best interests at heart. That way they're paying me for something I'd want to do anyway, if I could afford to do it on my own.' His grin was so guileless, it cut her like a knife. 'I wouldn't take Imperial coin, Bella Cheerwell, but I might just take the coin of Sieur Thalric.'

She stared at him. 'You've been spying on me for Thalric,' she said.

'I've been watching out for you, for Thalric,' he confirmed, absolutely candid. 'That's what he asked, that's what I've done. He doesn't think you can look after yourself, you see.'

'Oh, doesn't he?' she snapped. 'Does he not?' She heard her raised voice echo back from the emba.s.sy walls. Trallo waited, still smiling slightly, but not so close that he could not get out of the way if she went for him.

Diplomatic incident, her mind told her. He's broken the truce by spying on me. Blast the man just as I was getting somewhere with this city the Empire comes b.u.t.ting in He's broken the truce by spying on me. Blast the man just as I was getting somewhere with this city the Empire comes b.u.t.ting in. Another part of her was saying, You should not have asked the question if you did not want to hear the answer especially as you have known all this, if you had only thought about it, long before You should not have asked the question if you did not want to hear the answer especially as you have known all this, if you had only thought about it, long before.

And, a fragile voice: And he dragged you out of the Fir den, and what if he had not? And he dragged you out of the Fir den, and what if he had not?

'I want to be angry,' she complained. 'Why aren't I?'

'Beetle-kinden are a phlegmatic lot,' suggested Trallo, and then skipped back a step as she glared at him.

'And Flies are a pragmatic one,' she shot back. He shrugged at the truth of it.

She glanced back towards the Collegiate emba.s.sy, which was where she should now be going. But the Vekken would be there, and she did not feel ready to deal with that problem yet if it was even capable of being dealt with. Petri Coggen would be there too, another person Che did not want to see just now. She would have accepted the company of Manny Gorget or the others, but they were out doing what they were supposed to be doing. How simple some people's lives are How simple some people's lives are.

'Let's go have a word with Thalric,' she decided. Trallo raised his eyebrows, and she had the chance to turn his smile back on him. 'Why not? In this new climate of brutal honesty, I want to ask him why he's suborning my staff.'

She marched off around the pond towards the Imperial emba.s.sy, feeling a mean spark of pride that she had wrong-footed the Fly-kinden for once.

A servant was already opening the door to greet her.

'Cheerwell Maker, the Collegiate amba.s.sador, here to see her opposite number,' she announced smartly. The servant ushered her into the hallway, where another was already padding off to deliver the news. Aside from the ubiquitous Khanaphir she saw no one, certainly n.o.body serving under the Imperial flag.

'Where are they all?' she asked.

'Off watching your lot, I imagine,' Trallo said. 'You have to remember the way the Empire thinks. They don't believe for a moment you're just here to catch fish and look at stones.'

'And do you?' she asked him, because his tone had seemed doubting.

He spread his hands. 'I don't need to believe anything.'

As they stood in the hallway, Thalric appeared at the stair-rail above them, his expression suggesting that he had not believed the servant's message. Behind him there was a Beetle-kinden, a bulky Imperial of about Stenwold's age and dimensions.

There was a beat, a moment's pause, before Thalric turned and descended the stairs, saying, 'Amba.s.sador? Is there a problem?'

'Possibly.' Che saw Thalric's gaze touch on Trallo and then slide off, noticed the quickly suppressed flicker of understanding.

'Ah, well,' he said, then turned back to his Beetle companion. 'We'll have to break, Corolly. I'll leave the board set.'

The big man nodded. 'I've got paperwork to catch up with.' He gave Che a vague half-salute, like a man unsure about the formalities, before retreating into one of the upstairs rooms.

Thalric had paused near the foot of the stairs, and stood looking at her with a slight smile on his face. 'I suppose you should come up then, unless you want to keep this formal.' He singled out one of the servants. 'Get us some decent wine or something.' Then he was trekking back up the stairs, leaving Che to follow him. Trallo had already flitted up to the landing and, judging from his expression, Thalric must have given him a foul look as he pa.s.sed.

The room she followed him into matched her own across the other side of the Place of Foreigners. She had to force her eyes away from the walls, where ancient hands had inscribed a valedictory epic to a kinden she was not even sure she recognized, but that she imagined were depicted in the tall, hunchbacked effigies that flanked the main emba.s.sy doors. To one side there was a low table on which some kind of game had been set up, with two couches facing each other for the players. The two amba.s.sadors took their places on either side of it.

'How's ... your man, the ... injured one?' She had been about to say 'the drunk one', but that might not have been diplomatic enough.

'Osgan? Fevered,' Thalric said. 'Being tended, expected to recover. Getting yourself cut open in a swamp's a stupid thing to do.' Thalric shrugged. They had not spoken since the hunt, and she had no idea what he thought of what had happened there, in the village of the Mantis-kinden.

'Did he ... did he say what he saw there?' she asked tentatively.

'What Osgan sees is not regarded as reliable testimony,' he replied shortly. 'Even at the best of times.'

He did see something then. Had this man become so caught up in Tisamon's final moments and the death of the Emperor, that he was now able to grasp something of the Inapt world? She knew that she was unlikely ever to find out. 'Thalric ...' She frowned down at the game board and, in place of chastising him over Trallo, she just said, 'You're a really bad chess player. These pieces are all over the place.'

He had been waiting for something serious, and he snorted at that, caught off guard. 'What it is, is that you Lowlanders have no idea how to play chess,' he replied.

'I came third in the College trials, I'll have you know.' It had meant a lot to her, at the time. Now, facing his amus.e.m.e.nt, her sense of pride was dwindling.

'You play Ant-chess,' he said. 'Trudge-trudge-trudge. I couldn't believe it when I first came to h.e.l.leron all that lining up and slogging. In real chess-'

'They fly,' Che finished for him. 'Of course, if chess is a war, then ... war is different for the Wasps.' Such a simple thing, but it seemed to say a lot about the gap between them.

'Blame the Commonwealers. It's their game,' he said, but his smile was slipping fast. 'All right, Che, out with it.' The wine arrived then, a further stay of execution, but he was still braced and waiting when the servants bowed their way out.

'You have been keeping watch over me,' she accused. 'Using Trallo here, who has his kinden's sense of free business, I think.'

'And his kinden's ability to keep his mouth shut, I see,' Thalric added.

The Fly gave an amused snort and Che turned to him sharply. 'You've got something to say, at this point?'

'Only that you're both making a great fuss over nothing,' he said easily. 'He wants you looked after, so what? She knows about it, so what? There's no conflict here, no difference of opinion. Why all the secrecy, eh?'

They were both staring at him in exasperation. Then Che said, 'Don't you understand anything?' and paused, trying to put into words just why the Fly was wrong. 'Perhaps ... you'd better go wait at the emba.s.sy while I sort this out,' she said finally.

Trallo rolled his eyes at that. 'If you insist on complicating matters, Bella Cheerwell.' He bowed to them both, before stepping up on to the window ledge and letting the air catch him beyond it. Che could not keep herself from going to the window to make sure that he was not simply still hovering there, eavesdropping.

'Solarnese Fly-kinden,' she complained. 'What can you do with them?'