The Scarab Path

beneath. Spider silk, she realized.

'If you're wondering,' he said, 'it still hurts like the rack.' His voice was taut, with pain and the stale dregs of his own emotions. She opened her mouth to reply and he said, 'That was very elegantly handled. You're a born ambassador.'

'What, breaking a sword over him and then mouthing platitudes?' she replied.

'Everyone walked away from it.' Thalric finally held up the bolt and she saw a pinprick of blood at its tip.

'Closer than you'd like to admit?' she suggested.

'Being the pleasant-natured creature you are, and beloved of so many, you cannot imagine how many have tried to kill me over the years,' he told her, and she could not decide whether he was mocking her, and to what extent. 'That halfway artificer hasn't come the closest, and he's more reason than many to attempt it.' His smile was flat. 'I happen to agree with him. I think you're worth killing for too.'

She instantly felt deeply uncomfortable, remembering that he was a killer from a race of killers. At the same time, something responded in her that someone should say such a thing about her and not her sister … her sister … Tynisa.

'Where now, Thalric? Where do we take this now?'

'I have some temporary plans, regarding some matters I need to put right. All the more so if you'll be travelling with me.'

'I have plans as well,' she told him. 'There is something I must do.' The feeling of that moment's wrath, that Mantis-fury pure and deadly as forged steel, still terrified her. Not Tynisa, she thought. You shall not have her.

There was a ship that had already departed, and a ship that was preparing to leave. Two voyages to mark the end of this blighted moment in Khanaphir history.

Already on the seas were the Iron Glove men, finally enacting their long-promised banishment. Che had not spoken to Totho before he left, by unspoken consent. The fragile detente they had achieved would not bear too much inspection.

Now there was a second vessel, a Spider trader called Flighty Drachmis, and it would be heading to Porta Rabi, and from there one could find a way to Solarno, and from Solarno, home.

They were fewer than they had been, the Collegiate scholars. Trallo of the dubious loyalties had been loyal enough to die for them, and poor Mannerly Gorget too. They were also reinforced though, for as well as Praeda and old Berjek Gripshod, and the brace of Vekken, there was now the looming figure of Amnon, former First Soldier of Khanaphes. Even in his simple white tunic he still looked like a warrior.

'Are you sure you're not coming with us, Miss Maker?' Berjek asked. 'What precisely am I to tell your uncle?'

'I've thought of that,' Che said, producing a folded and sealed letter. 'This will satisfy him. I'll send messengers when I can — if I can. Tell him not to worry about me.'

He huffed, and asked balefully, 'Any other impossible tasks?' After a moment he added, sadly, 'It's not worked out well here, has it?'

'Not so well, no,' she admitted. 'I have had my hand in that, I think. I'm sure I could have done more.' She thought of Petri Coggen, and knew that, of all of their losses, she could have prevented that death, had she not been so wrapped up in her own problems. I am sorry. There were so many people that she owed apologies to, and most would never hear them.

'Che, come back to us,' Praeda told her. 'If not now, then soon.'

Che shrugged, unwilling to commit herself. 'I will try. I can make no promises. I have a long road.'

Praeda glared at Thalric, over Che's shoulder. 'And you'd travel with this Wasp, rather than us?'

'Yes, I would.'

The other woman made a wry expression. 'Well, be safe.'

'And you.' After which, Che turned to the last two waiting to embark. They looked back at her from near- identical faces, dark and expressionless.

'What will you say?' she asked them.

Accius and Malius shared a moment of silent conference before Malius finally answered. 'That we cannot understand why you came here, but it involved no plot against Vek. That our cities are both enemies of the Empire. That …' She had the impression that Accius was prompting him before he went on. 'That there may be some cause for common ground between us. Perhaps.'

She took a deep breath. So little conceded, and yet see how far we've come! 'My uncle is a genuine man, and he does not wish another Vekken war. I know he will treat fairly with you. I know that you cannot take my word on that, but all I ask is that you keep an open mind.'

'That was humour?' Accius interposed unexpectedly. Caught unawares, Che stared at him in surprise.

'Open mind?' she realized at last. 'The Ant mindlink.' A smile forced its way unbidden to her lips. 'Humour, fair enough. Travel safely, both of you.'

'Do not fear for us,' Malius said, halfway between affront and reassurance. It was hard for Che to keep in mind how both of them had been present there beneath the earth, one in body, the other just in mind.

She watched them take ship, as the Spider-kinden crew cast off moorings and let the current take them out towards the Marsh channels without raising sail. Her own route would take them upriver as far as the Forest Alim, and further still.

'Have you actually any idea where we're going?' Thalric said.

'Oh, yes,' Che replied, 'every idea, but you're not going to like it. You won't be made very welcome.'

'That hardly narrows down the list of places I know,' he said drily.

'The Commonweal,' she said, remembering Tisamon's shade saying, She is amongst the Dragonflies. 'Tynisa is in the Commonweal. Feeling any reservations now?'

'No, that's good,' he said, surprising her. 'It's out of the way, and I feel the need to be invisible for a while. News travels more slowly in the Commonweal — although there is a single message that I must send first. Just a little unfinished business.'

General Brugan retired to the desk in his study after a long day. The Khanaphir expedition had returned at last, or what was left of it. Detailed interrogations could wait, but the ranking officer had some plea for mitigation he wanted to make, sounding tiresomely technical. Other than that, Captain-Auxillian Hrathen was dead, which was no loss. The Scorpions of the Nem had been decimated, likewise, and half of Khanaphes had been sacked. How one sacked half a city was a mystery to General Brugan, but it suggested poor planning.

There had been no definite word, however, regarding his chief concern, and that irked him. Sulvec and the entire Rekef team seemed to have died as well, which was a shame. Brugan was left only with the uneasy hope that they had at least accomplished their mission before vanishing so utterly.

It was late now, but the Rekef paperwork would only accumulate if he postponed it. Unlike his predecessor, he kept as many layers of clerks between himself and the sources of information as possible: good, trained men who knew how to judge what was important.

He sorted through the summaries and reports, gleaning the essential information from a quick glance, reading in more detail when it was merited. His mental picture of Rekef operations within the Empire, and without, was advanced by one day.

He came to one sealed scroll and broke it open, and paused. The seal on the outside was top priority from the governor of Shalk, his eyes only. The handwriting within was no clerk's, though, too solid and blocky and uneconomical. It was a soldier's hand, and Brugan knew it already. He felt his stomach twist just to see it, even before he read the words:

General Brugan,

I hope this missive finds you in good health and secure in the heart of your power.

You will be pleased to hear that I have solved the matter of the assassinations. It took a few more attempts and a confession for the pattern to become clear, but now I understand. I have been painfully slow in this task, not befitting a Rekef agent, and I apologize for this.

I understand that, when I was chosen to stand beside our Queen, it was because I was a man entirely at her mercy, who would have nothing without her support. I was her husband to satisfy the conservatives,