'You took to the artillery business fine, didn't you? You enjoyed it?'

The Scorpion nodded cautiously.

'Now things have gone sour for your lot here, but the Empire can always use an Auxillian engineer or two. We need to get back to the Empire, quick as you can. Get us there and you and your men will get paid, rewarded. Which is more than I can say about anything that might happen to you around here.'

Genraki nodded again. 'Away from this city,' he agreed. 'Away from the Masters' anger.'

'Whatever.' Angved felt for the satchel containing his precious samples, his notes and calculations. 'And don't think the Empire will forget about this place. I've a feeling the black and gold might be back in sight of here sooner than you think.' He looked around at the doubting faces of the other Wasps. 'Just you follow my lead,' he told them. 'I'll pull us from the fire yet.' They'll make me a major for this, at the least, which will give me a nice packet to retire on They'll make me a major for this, at the least, which will give me a nice packet to retire on.

'Get us to the Empire,' he told Genraki. 'Guide us through the desert. You'll be well paid for it, and if you want to stay on there, we can find work for you engineers or Slave Corps, your choice.'

He grinned. Life was looking up. Even the rain was stopping.

'It's another dead end.'

Sulvec flinched at the words. 'Look again.' His voice came out as a croak. 'You must be wrong.'

'I checked, sir. I looked everywhere. It's not the way out.'

'Then find the way!' Sulvec shouted at him. They listened to the echoes of his voice pa.s.s back and forth down the hall. In their waning lamplight, the Wasps' faces looked pale and drawn. Sulvec's eyes were very wide, as though trying to scoop up as much of the failing light as they could. A muscle tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'How can we be lost?' he whispered. 'Where have all these tunnels come from?'

'We'll have to go back, sir. We must have taken a wrong turn.'

'So many tunnels, all dark and covered with slime ... so many of them.' Sulvec swallowed convulsively. 'We'll go back. We must have missed a turn, that's all. We're probably just a hundred yards from the entrance.' He ignored the expressions of his men which said, A hundred yards of solid rock A hundred yards of solid rock. 'Get moving!' he snapped at them. 'And bring him him along too.' along too.'

He kicked out at Osgan's collapsed form, which had been keeping up a steady, ragged whimpering. The two soldiers looked at their leader with revulsion that was only half-concealed.

'Sir,' one of them said, after a moment, 'he's going to die anyway. He's stabbed through the gut. I'm amazed he's not gone already.'

'He's not gone yet because I still have a use for him,' Sulvec spat out. 'Now just bring him.'

'Sir,' the soldier said again, 'can't we leave him? What's the point of dragging him around this place? I mean, can't we finish him off?' They were Rekef men, but there were limits.

Sulvec snarled at them. 'What's this? Bleeding hearts in the Rekef? Think this is Collegium, do you? You're taking my orders, and my orders are to bring him.' Sulvec felt as though the world was falling away from him, here in this horrible darkness. Marger had not come back. Thalric had not come back. They had seen no living thing since the fight, and yet the darkness beyond their lamps had seemed to throng with monstrous, ma.s.sive shapes. He needed Osgan. He needed Osgan because as long as he had Osgan in his power, Osgan who would scream and writhe at Sulvec's whim, he was not helpless. Osgan was his hold on the world.

'Sir-'

'One more word,' Sulvec shrieked at him. 'One more word and I'll make you envy him!' There were tears in his eyes, for his men were on the point of mutiny. He felt his fingers flex and curl with the need to hurt something. He settled for kicking Osgan again, drawing a choked cry. 'Now bring him.' He watched as they levered the mortally wounded man up between them, the strain causing Osgan to gasp and retch. The stricken man's face was nothing but a haggard mask of pain, and Sulvec smiled to see it. While I have you, I have control While I have you, I have control. Osgan sobbed wretchedly, wailing each time they shifted his weight.

Sulvec took up the lantern and led the way back down the hall, peering ahead and yet not really looking, not wanting to see what the lantern might reveal. That was another use for Osgan. The prisoner was an anchor to slow their progress, so that the things in the dark had time to get themselves out of sight.

When I see daylight again, Sulvec thought grimly, I will rip him open. I will pull his organs out of him. I will gouge out his eyes. That's only fair, after he and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Thalric dragged me down here I will rip him open. I will pull his organs out of him. I will gouge out his eyes. That's only fair, after he and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Thalric dragged me down here.

Osgan was suddenly quiet, and a tremor of fear ran through Sulvec. He's dead? He can't be dead. Not yet. I'm not done with him yet He's dead? He can't be dead. Not yet. I'm not done with him yet. He whirled around to face the two soldiers, half expecting to see that they'd cut the suffering man's throat. Instead, he found himself looking into Osgan's face. It had been transformed. The expression written there had gone beyond fear of anything that Sulvec might do to him. It was almost blissful in its terror, the look of the man who sees the thing he most dreads come to pa.s.s, and knows he need not dread it any more.

'He's coming,' Osgan whispered.

Sulvec flinched away from him, and the soldiers let go, dropping Osgan to his knees. He knelt there, arms wrapped about his b.l.o.o.d.y stomach, dragging in halting breaths, and just staring.

The soldiers were already spread out, palms aimed at the darkness. 'Something's coming,' one of them said.

'Nothing's coming!' Sulvec insisted, although he did not believe it. 'Nothing! You're letting a dead man get to you. Pick him up!'

'Sir,' said the soldier, and then he died.

Sulvec saw it happen, as a sudden line of red across his throat, the flash of a blade outlined in blood, and the man dropped. The other soldier loosed a stingshot into the dark, then again and again, backing away from something Sulvec could not see. Sulvec opened his mouth to yell at him, but then the second soldier was dead too, twin sprays of blood from head and body and he had fallen away into the darkness.

Osgan was laughing, the sound twisted into a hideous cackle by the pain he was suffering.

Sulvec backed off, but he was backing off from nothing he could see. 'Show yourself!' he ordered. 'Let me see you.'

And then there was someone there, standing between the two corpses. Sulvec did not understand how he could have missed him. A tall, slender man with pointed features, a Mantis-kinden of the Lowlands with a claw on his hand. Sulvec could see him clearly although the lamps were almost out. Whatever illuminated the Mantis shone on nothing else.

He advanced in a delicate stalking movement that made no sound. The light on him fell from one side, and Sulvec could see only whatever that ghost-light touched. The rest of him was made of darkness that even the lamplight could not dispel.

Sulvec loosed a stingbolt at him, but the Mantis seemed untroubled. The Rekef man tried to draw his sword, but his hands were shaking too much. He backed off, further and further away from the discarded lamps of the dead soldiers. His own flickered and died, its fuel spent.

The Mantis reached Osgan and stared silently down at him until the wretched Wasp was able to lift his head.

A voice came cold and clear to Sulvec. The Mantis's lips moved. I remember you I remember you.

Osgan made a great shuddering sound that was part sob, part laugh. 'I knew ...' he got out, with the greatest of efforts, 'you'd come. They said ... you were dead ... but I knew ...'

You sat beside the Emperor, came the Mantis's distant voice. You had your knife, little scribe. Would you have fought to defend your master? You had your knife, little scribe. Would you have fought to defend your master? Osgan's strangled response was wordless, incoherent, but the Mantis said, Osgan's strangled response was wordless, incoherent, but the Mantis said, Yes, I think you would Yes, I think you would.

His off hand, the arm jagged with barbs, rested on Osgan's shoulder. I shall give you more, at least, than these your kin I shall give you more, at least, than these your kin. There was a moment of understanding, dying man to dead one, and the spectral blade speared down just once, precise and final.

Sulvec saw something seep out of Osgan's tortured frame, saw the racked and twisted man relax at last, muscle by muscle. The long release of breath he heard was without pain, was at peace. It was Osgan's last. He swayed and pitched on to his side, and Sulvec knew for sure he was dead.

The Mantis looked up and his eyes, one lit and one shrouded in shadow, found Sulvec.

'Now,' he said, as the lamps went out.

Che sagged back into Thalric's arms, mind still full of the swollen river, even though the images had now left her. Looking up at the a.s.sembled Masters, she saw not one of them was looking at her. They did not even mean to show me They did not even mean to show me, she thought numbly. I just got carried along, when they looked. What have I seen? I cannot take it in I just got carried along, when they looked. What have I seen? I cannot take it in.

'What?' Thalric was demanding. 'They haven't done anything. What's happening, Che? What's wrong?'

She stepped away from him, feeling a tug of resistance and then release. 'Do not ask me,' she said. 'I cannot say. I don't have words for what I've seen. Oh, Thalric, I can't hope to make you understand.'

There was a great sigh from the Masters, and she knew that they had finished. A great burden of sorrow was upon them, their faces disfigured by the dregs of effort. Some simply walked away. Many lingered as though, having awoken, they were unsure what it had been for. Only one was missing: armoured Garmoth Atennar had absented himself, perhaps to take his huge sword to the Scorpions in person.

'Such waste of our resources,' said Jeherian bitterly. 'We should be angry with our servants for putting us to this, but I cannot find the will to care.'

'But what happened?' Che asked them. 'How did you do it? Such a ritual, brought to bear so swiftly!' Words of Achaeos recurred to her. 'I know know the Moths would never have attempted it.' the Moths would never have attempted it.'

'No,' replied Elysiath, 'but they, like most kinden, are brief and impatient. What you saw was not the making of a ritual, but the breaking of one. It is very simple.'

'Not to me, it's not,' Che insisted. 'Please, you must tell me what you did.'

Elysiath sighed, her shoulders slumping as though the very act of having to explain herself to Che required more effort than she could countenance. 'Little child,' she said, 'we have told you.'

'Yet it is important she understands,' Jeherian put in, surprising Che. 'We have told you how, when we foresaw the changes these lands would suffer, we came to the decision to absent ourselves from the harsh surface above, and to work our great ritual from these our halls. Our ritual is for the restoration of the land, the balance that was broken by that great earthquake and cataclysm so long ago. For nine hundred years we have maintained it, and so we shall for millennia to come, if need be, however long our work may take. For we foresaw that the only way to break the drought was to hurry it to its ultimate ends, spur it on to its worst excesses. Of a dry land we have made a desert, watered only by the deep wells, and by the faithful Jamail.'

'You made made the desert?' Che asked, astonished. the desert?' Che asked, astonished.

'By our will it has not rained in these lands for centuries past. It rains over the Forest Alim, where the clouds break on the mountains, and thus the Jamail does not run dry, but from over our city and dominion, we take the rain and hide it from the world, for year after year.'

'That's monstrous,' Che protested in a small voice. She could not conceive of it.

'Who may presume to judge our actions? We who live longer, see further. Without us, the land would dry and dry, over the ages. Instead we have brought that drought before its time, and hold it while the rain gathers, forcing it to burn too bright, to consume itself in its own heat. We have broken our ritual just to save our idiot servants. We have set ourselves back two hundred and seventy-five years of rain.'

Che could not speak. The man smiled, arrogant beyond the dreams of emperors.

'When we shall unleash that h.o.a.rded rain, when we have finally gathered sufficient of it, we shall transform the entire world. We shall strike a blow whereby we shall reverse the cataclysm. The land shall be green again, and we shall rule it directly once more.'

His words washed over her, and she swayed under their impact. They were madness and yet, revealed to her by the Masters of Khanaphes, she knew that they must be the truth. Here was a magic a thousand years in the making, and acc.u.mulating still, and of such power that the Moth-kinden themselves could not have dreamt of it.

'The rain rain has washed the Scorpions away?' Thalric's voice broke in on them, an outsider intruding. 'I understand nothing of this.' The Masters' expressions clearly told him: has washed the Scorpions away?' Thalric's voice broke in on them, an outsider intruding. 'I understand nothing of this.' The Masters' expressions clearly told him: Of course you don't Of course you don't.' Tell me one thing,' he went on, and they looked at him without interest as he asked, 'What will you and your people do when the Empire gets here?'

'Your Empire does not interest us,' said Lirielle. 'Mere children and their toys.'

'But you seem to have realized now what those toys can do,' Thalric insisted. 'A pack of barbarians with a little artillery has nearly destroyed your city. The Empire-'

'We can see your Empire in your mind,' Elysiath silenced him at once, 'like a child's chalk drawing of power. They will come, you a.s.sume, and seek to command Khanaphes, to make it part of your dominion.' She stretched expansively. 'It would be tiresome to have to destroy your Empire, and distracting. I imagine, therefore, that we will allow you to bring your governors and your soldiers, and thus pretend that Khanaphes is yours.' She smiled at that, at last a real expression, sharp-edged and aimed directly at him. 'But how long do you believe your Empire will last?'

He stared at her blankly and she continued, 'I am nine times older than your Empire, O savage, and I shall still be young when your kinden have become the playthings of some other children. Your Empire will decay and die in due course. Only we are eternal.'

Thalric opened his mouth, but no words came out.

'But enough of such trifles,' Elysiath said. 'Let us instead talk of you.' She was looking at Che. In fact they were all looking at her.

'Me?' Che stared.

'You who have answered our summons,' the woman said. 'You who have been gifted, by chance, with such an open power. You have been separated from the tawdry heritage of your own people. You have been made special.'

'I ...'

'Why did you come here, really?' Elysiath asked her.

'I was sent ...' She stuttered into silence, feeling the lie burn on her tongue. 'I was not happy in Collegium. I wanted to discover what has happened to me.'

'And so you heard our call,' the Master told her. 'And you followed your destiny all the way to Khanaphes.'

'But what do you want? Why would you call me?'

'You can see how remiss our servants have been here, and yet you ask that?' Elysiath smiled. 'The old blood that rules our city has grown thin and weak. We should have antic.i.p.ated that. They hear our commands but faintly. They are only a shadow of their ancestors. We would appoint you as our priestess, instruct you in the ways of our power. We would set you above our other servants, as one who can hear us clearly, and is therefore most dear to us.' The expression she turned on Che was almost maternal. 'You shall become First Minister of our city.'

'Che ...' she heard Thalric's warning tone, but she shrugged him off.

'Why?' she asked. 'Why would I?' She expected them to recoil from the insolence of the question, to inform her that serving them was reward enough in itself. She was ready for that.

'Because you are a true scholar,' said Elysiath, 'one who seeks knowledge always. And nowhere will you find such understanding as we have, we who have lived out, in person, the ages that are your kind's ancient history. We can give you knowledge that even the Moths have forgotten, and that, even if they possessed it, they would not share. We can tell you the names of all the kinden in the world. We can reveal to you why it is that the Mantids of the Lowlands hate the Spiders so, though even they have let themselves forget it. We can teach you where the Art came from, and how to truly master it.' Her fond look deepened. 'But more than that, little child, where else have you to go? You are in a world that has no place for you, save here. You are no longer one of your people, no longer a creature of your home. You are adrift in a land that cannot understand you. You cannot even understand yourself. We shall explain everything. We shall give you a place here. You shall be honoured, become the messenger of the Masters to their servants.'

Che tried to refuse them, but the words came reluctantly to her mind and she could not force them out. It was their sympathy that struck her to the heart, the understanding that they had promised. They knew what she had gone through, and she felt tears in her eyes. Where else but here would she ever find real acceptance? Better a servant of the Masters than a lonely outcast forever moving on.

'Yes,' she said, her voice choking.

Elysiath's approval warmed her. 'You know what you must do,' she said, 'to be ours, and to enter into our grace.' At her side Jeherian held out something small, and Che stepped forward, reached up and took it. In her hand rested a curved blade of sharpened copper: a razor.

Kneeling down, she took a fistful of her hair, bringing the razor up to it. Of course she knew what she must do, what the Khanaphir had done since time immemorial in order to demonstrate their servitude.

'Che!' Thalric spoke urgently. 'Don't do this.' She could sense the attention of the Masters focused on her like a pressure guiding her hand. The blade, keener than copper should rightly be, severed the first few strands.

'Che, you heard them,' Thalric persisted. 'They don't care about you. They don't care about anyone in Khanaphes, or anyone in the world. Listen to me, Che, this is insane. You can't want to stay down here in the slime and the dark.'

She just gazed at him, and already felt him as a memory, receding into her past. 'I'm sorry,' she said, not sure who she was sorry for, or why.

'They killed your man Kadro, and that woman his a.s.sistant,' Thalric went on. He was fighting to get out the words as though the air itself was smothering him. 'And they don't care. People like us, the Apt kinden, we're just beasts to them, nothing but insects.'

'I know,' she replied sadly, 'but what are we, if not that?' She moved the razor more decisively, severing a handful of her locks, took hold of some more.

'Che, I like your hair. Don't cut it off,' Thalric implored her.

She looked for him again, finding that he was hard to focus on. Even his name seemed strange in her mind.

'Che, please,' he went on, 'listen to me. You know that I care for you. Ever since we first met, there was something about you.' He laughed desperately. 'I'll admit we got off to a poor start, but you can't say I don't have some claim on you. Please, Che, stay with me.'

She shook her head, astonished by his temerity. 'With you?' she said incredulously, the memories drawn back to the surface of her mind whether she wanted them or not. 'Thalric, when the Masters tested me, do you know what they made me live through? What they chose as the most terrible memory I must relive? It was the interrogation room in Myna. That was the worst moment in my life, and they made me watch you torturing me, over and over.'

'What do you think,' he replied through gritted teeth, 'they made me me see?' see?'

'...What?' She felt as though something deep within her had exploded, yet so far away that she had only heard the hollow knock of it, that the main force of it was still travelling towards her.

'What do you think was the moment in my life they took me back to, if not that? The one moment of them all that I would take back if I could. Not your b.a.s.t.a.r.d sister and her father destroying me in h.e.l.leron. Not killing my own mentor for some Rekef General's whim. Not my own kind turning on me outside Collegium. Not that b.i.t.c.h Felise Mienn with her blade held at my throat, or being strung up in Armour Square, ready for execution. Not my pain at all, but yours yours. They used their Art, or whatever, to make me hurt you, in my head, and I could not endure it. It would have destroyed me if you had not broken their hold.'

The breath whooshed out of her, and she felt the razor slip from her hand. It left a shallow cut on her thigh as it bounced from her leg, and then clacked onto the oily floor.

'Help me,' she whispered, and Thalric took her hand, pulled her up towards him and held her tightly. She sensed Accius moving forward, until he stood beside Thalric, and belatedly she realized that this was because the Masters were now frowning at them.

She hugged Thalric briefly and then turned to them, and their glowering expressions. The awesome disappointment and disapproval she saw there nearly dried up the words in her mouth. She finally got out, 'I thank you for your offer, your generous offer, but I am not the person you take me for. I am not fit to serve you, surely. We must return to the city. I have friends there.'

Elysiath regarded her sourly, almost petulantly, and Che wondered whether she was the first person to ever refuse the Masters something they wanted. 'Return?' the woman said drily. 'Return to Khanaphes Above?'

'We must, all three of us,' Che said, with more strength. 'I'm sorry.'

The Masters exchanged looks from the corners of their eyes. 'Perhaps you are right,' Elysiath said. 'You are not fit to serve us, if that is what you believe.'

'You have heard entirely too much of our secret histories,' added Lirielle, but Elysiath actually interrupted and spoke over her: 'These two with you, the savages, were doomed from the moment they stepped into our resting place, but you, you had a chance to become something greater than you are. Yet you have turned your back on that chance. You were born amongst the slave races, and now you shall die amongst them. Think only how you could have been more.'