The Scarab Path

And he will let her be what she wants to be, she thought, battling still through the packed streets. No scholar he, nor merchant, he will not compete with her, or try to be her better. In Collegium it was always maintained that men and women were equals. Artisans, militia, artificers, scholars, all could boast women within their ranks. Still, Che had seen the Assembly, and seen that at least three of every four were men, and the ratio was worse amongst the merchant magnates. Helleron's Council consisted of twelve men and one hard-nosed woman. We are not the Wasps, with their strict patriarchy, but we should take a long look at what we actually are.

She ducked in at a convenient corner to get her bearings. She had received plenty of news from the battle front, which was even now advancing on the river. None of it seemed good. She had seen Totho and Amnon in conference several times, and it seemed that the Iron Glove was taking some personal interest in the outcome. Despite her harsh words for the man, she could not help but think, I hope Totho knows what he's doing. Certainly a great deal of the city had been surrendered already. In the sky to the west, the sunset was darkened with smoke.

She had been keeping her eyes out for the Wasp-kinden. They were out there still, and it seemed clear that both she and Thalric were on the menu as far as the Rekef were concerned. They would be holed up somewhere here in the east city, but they would be working at a disadvantage, because Khanaphes was not the sort of city they were used to. The word had gone out now that they were enemies of the Ministers and Masters, so a Wasp-kinden face would find few friends here. They would be forced to seek their agents and spies amongst the lowest of the low: halfbreeds, criminals and those few foreigners who had not fled when word of the Scorpions came. Even there they risked exposure and betrayal to the city's authorities. They would have to tread carefully.

Of course, Thalric had the same problem himself, hence his need for Che. She had done her best to explain to the Ministers that Thalric himself was no part of the Empire's plan. They had nodded and smiled with their usual politic blankness, leaving her unsure whether they had believed her or not. She also half expected to get back to find that the drinking den's owner had sold him out.

She spotted a foreign face within the crowd, just for a moment. She had been looking backwards, along the way she had come. It was the brief discontinuity that had caught her, another person not quite in tune with the crowd. But it was not the pale flash of a Wasp face. It was a face darker than her own, than any local: coal-black Vekken features.

She cursed, moving out into the crowd again, knowing that the other one of them would be somewhere about. What do they want? But that was an old question. They wanted to kill her, of course, and she had to assume they were following some distant Vekken directive, because she had surely given them no recent cause. They must have received their instructions before any of them even set out from Collegium, and on that list, triggered by who knew what, was the directive: Kill the ambassador.

Uncle Sten and his stupid ideas. Peace with the Vekken, indeed! She had already gathered enough understanding of them to know that it was simply not an option. They hate us. They fear us. There is no common ground.

She picked up her pace, jostling and pushing, sensing in the back of her mind the two Ant-kinden trying to reach her through the crowd. One was likely ahead of her, trying to find an ambush point, silently guided by his comrade. She changed direction several times, trying to be unpredictable. She was meanwhile looking for any kind of public building.

She saw a large house that had obviously been opened up for refugees. As swiftly as she could, she ducked inside. The place was lined wall-to-wall with people: each had inherited a space of stone floor in place of the home they had abandoned across the river. She pushed through them, making for the stairs, ignoring their complaints. She imagined the doorway now darkening as the hooded Vekken came inside after her.

Upstairs, still stepping and stumbling over destitute Khanaphir, but she had seen a window large enough to admit her. She rushed for it, squeezed through it, let her wings catch her as she dropped. She was a clumsy and awkward flier, but it was an Art the Vekken could not attain. She let her wings carry her across a flight of buildings, across two alleys, dropping down into a roof garden and then making her way across to the street, past more surprised locals. Let that put them off the trail.

She was uncomfortably aware that they would not give up hunting her, though. They had a kind of blind, idiot patience in that regard, an Ant trait. She would have to confront them eventually.

Then let me choose the time and place, and let me choose my allies too. She had no doubt that Thalric would back her, should she ask him. The thought gave her an odd surge of confidence: to have a friend, no matter who, one who would not ask the wrong questions. Just to have a friend.

She was getting close to his retreat now. It had taken her long enough. His hideout was across an open-air market from her, although the stalls had now all been turned into surrogate housing. Rows and rows of Khanaphir were huddled together beneath the awnings, hundreds of them sitting there with bland acceptance, simply waiting to be told they could go home.

It was an instinct that came with flying, an instinct that precious few of the locals could possess. Entering the market, Che had glanced up at the rooftops.

They were there. She saw two of them clearly, one to her left, one to her right, crouching on high and watching: Wasp-kinden. They were cloaked, but their simple presence said it all.

They've tracked him down. For a moment she thought they might have killed him already, but then why would they still be watching? Surely not for her? It's still daylight, just, and they won't risk anything until after dark. She could not be sure of that, but it seemed to make sense. If she went into that drinking den now, she could be walking into a trap, but if she did not she could be leaving him to his fate.

Was this part of the bargain we made? But that was not a question worth asking. Her difficulty now would be getting in without being spotted by the Wasp sentries.

She put a shawl up over her hair, so that she now looked as much a Beetle-kinden as the locals. Once that tell-tale was covered, there was nothing in her appearance that should scream foreigner at them. Nothing except the way she moved.

The crowd was settling, the streets were emptying as dusk drew on. She must go now if she was to take cover amongst these, her distant kin.

But what a gulf separates us. We are of different worlds. The thought was irresistible, sweeping over her with the feverish insistence of a Fir dream. O Masters of Khanaphir, aid me, she mouthed. Hide me from the eyes of my enemies.

She stepped into the crowd and moved through it, and it opened up before her. It was not that people parted for her; that would hardly have served her purpose. Instead, they were always just out of her step, not in her way, not snagging her elbows or stepping on her feet. She coursed through the settling crowd like a true part of it. Her mind reeled at the continuing strangeness, waited each moment for everything to come crashing down, but somewhere deeper it felt natural to her, as though she had finally started to listen to a voice she had been trying to ignore.

She reached the den's entrance, knowing better than to glance back and thus show her face.

A thought struck her just before she entered the building, and she let her smooth course carry her past and then down a side alley, seeming nothing more than one Beetle amongst hundreds. She was keenly aware of time, the hour latening, the Wasps surely readying themselves to swoop. Still, she continued on to the riverside, towards the building's rear, the hatch that was Thalric's fall-back. With eyes that were not hindered by the gathering dusk, she managed several quick glances at the rooftops, seeing no one.

But why would the Wasps not be watching here? It felt wrong. They were Rekef, therefore neither fools nor amateurs. Still, aside from a few ambling Beetles going homeward, their eyes fixed on the far bank and its bristling newcomers, she saw nobody.

She walked right around the building and slipped back to the front, ducking inside. It was increasingly difficult to keep her pace nonchalant. She could almost hear the sands dwindling in the glass.

The place was nearly empty: the Ministers had yet to commandeer it to house fugitives and, with the city sundered in two, it was not a night for drinking. Khanaphes was frightened. Of the three people there, one was audibly murmuring some invocation to the Masters, and she wondered if this was something they had always done when faced with life's trials, or whether the emergency had brought them back to it.