The Scarab Path

Images from the night before last still recurred to him as he sat down opposite. He and Osgan avoided each other's eyes, both of them men who had seen too much.

Osgan shook a pair of dice out of a leather bag, a handful of small coins from another. 'Might as well make use of the time,' he grunted. He was an appalling gambler, but Thalric made sure he did not lose too much. Only a year ago Osgan had been a rising star in the Consortium of the Honest: supply officer for the Ninth Army, stationed in Capitas, with his hands immersed in the stream of Imperial funds, even holding the favour of the Emperor, but now …

He held his current position among the steward's staff becauseThalric made it so. If not for that he would have been a debt-slave by now, meat for the fighting pits, conscripted into the Auxillians. It had all fallen down for Osgan, on the day the Emperor died.

It had fallen down forThalric: same day, different reasons. Thalric who had been a traitor, just as Tegrec had named him, who had killed a Rekef general, who had been brought to Capitas in chains. Thalric who had been saved from a bad fate for, he was discovering, a worse one. Thalric who found the Empress's court at Capitas that bit stranger each time he was dragged back to it. Thalric, who had grown used, in his career as a traitor, to having people around to talk to.

The Rekef man he had once been could not have cared less. That Rekef man had underlings and superiors and enemies. The traitor he became had stood alongside such as the redoubtable Stenwold Maker, the Mantis butcher Tisamon, the enigmatic Achaeos. They saw more of me than my own people were ever allowed to. It had seemed right, then, but he had not thought he would ever be coming back.

But I grew used to having someone to talk to. Well, now he had Osgan. He could say what he liked to Osgan. Nobody listened to a shaky supply officer who was drunk most of the time. Nobody cared about this man, except Thalric.

And who cares for me? The image of Seda's face came straight to mind. She must feel something to draw him back and back again, but he had no word for that emotion. She had summoned him to her chamber, where he had been bathed and readied by the slaves, dressed in Spider silks and then taken to her bed. He knew there were many who would give everything to swap places with him. He would give anything to oblige.

'So what's new, chief?' Osgan asked, making a cavalier throw of the dice that spilled them off the crate entirely. The bottle was near empty, and Thalric took it up and drained it until it was. The bitter soldier's beer Osgan had purloined tasted of honesty.

'Someone's trying to kill me,' Thalric said.

Osgan made a grotesque mime of surprise. 'News? Since when's that news?' He retrieved the dice. 'Give me a quill and a week, I'll draw you a list of them that want you dead. Lowlanders, Comm'wealers, even your own friends and neighbours. So what?'

'They had a solid try at it outside Tyrshaan.' Thalric frowned. 'Wasp assassins, so not Commonwealers. And the Lowlanders who know me wouldn't send assassins. Not since the Mantis died.' Osgan flinched at that. Thalric grimaced. 'Someone inside the Empire wants me dead,' he finished.

'Everyone wants you dead,' Osgan muttered. 'Everyone but me. And why not? If they hate Herself, then they hate you too. If they like Herself, then they hate you. Some of them probably just hate you anyway.'

Thalric nodded glumly, conceding the point. His position had endeared him to few. 'I would shed this role if I could.'

Osgan was sober enough to grimace at that. 'I know, I know,' he said, almost whispering, 'but don't say it. I don't want to hear it in case they come after me with their hooks to find out what I heard.' He fumbled out another bottle, drew the cork with his teeth.

When Thalric had entered her chambers two nights ago she had been waiting for him, wearing a dress of white silk that hung from one shoulder and followed to her body's every line. There was that happy glow to her that he had learned to recognize, just as he recognized the taste on her lips.

She had offered him a goblet.

Thalric grabbed the bottle from Osgan and took a great swallow, because that taste had suddenly recurred to him.

'I have to get out of here,' he said desperately.

Osgan shrugged. 'Door's right there, chief.'

'You know what I mean.'

'I know, but it's like the army, chief. You don't get out till it's had its full use of you.'

Thalric had looked into the red, red liquid in the jewelled goblet, and he had drunk deep of it, because she would accept nothing else. The taste of salt and rust had coated his throat. She had kissed him, drawn him towards the great bed.

How long can I survive? A lucky man could retire from the army, but there would be no quitting this post. She took me as a prisoner and a traitor. She saw just enough in me to be worth keeping. Now she devours me at her leisure.

She would ask for him again tonight. She always left him a day and a night to recover. He wondered what arrangements she made when he was absent.

The most terrible thing about it was that he thought she did feel something for him, some attraction, even some affection. She was cold, though, and everything new she learned from her select advisers was making her more distant still. She was different. Everything about her appearance suggested simply a young Wasp woman who was little more than a girl. Her beauty almost broke his heart, but only because he knew that under the skin some part of her had been stripped away.

This last time, he had not looked into the antechamber where the detritus of her preparations would still be on display. He did not wish, when sipping from the red cup, to know what vintage she had provided him with.

She will be the death of me. It was no more than the truth.

General Brugan let him stew for a tenday before calling him in. Thalric spent the meantime in standing dutifully beside the Empress with a tight-lipped smile, or in hearing the words of those who courted his own favour. He spent his time in sloping off to talk with Osgan down in the cellars, and dulling the edges of his life with drink. He spent it in Seda's chambers, stepping into her embrace, meeting her red lips as her slender body entwined with his.

Sometimes, as she arched atop him at the very climax of their coupling, he saw something in her eyes: a girl whose childhood had been lived in the shadow of death, and who had seized her only chance to live. The image was despairing, and it called to him for help. He wondered if she saw some similar plea for rescue in his.

He had lived his previous life hoping that a Rekef general would never call for him, but when Brugan's messenger came, it was only a relief.

The office was lined with racks full of scrolls and shelves of books and next to it was housed a coterie of clerks who sifted every word that came into the Empire, searching for the least drachm of significance. It had belonged to Brugan's rival and predecessor, yet he had changed nothing, and Thalric wondered whether this was to celebrate Brugan's victory, or remind him that nobody lasts for ever.

'Ah, Lord Regent,' he said without expression. There was a Wasp-kinden woman sitting in the corner, ready to record whatever was said.

'General,' Thalric was aware of the absurdity, 'you can call me Major, if you want, sir. I think I still own the rank.'

Brugan shrugged. There was no warmth towards Thalric in his expression, but it was not the job of a Rekef general to like people. 'I suppose I am calling on you for information, as I would with any agent,' he said carefully, with a curt gesture for Thalric to sit. 'I am aware you had a many-coloured career in the war.'

Thalric took the one seat before the desk, wondering how many others must have sweated and trembled here. However, he did not rise to the barb.

Brugan's lips twitched slightly. 'That may be of use,' he continued drily, 'now that you are a good son of the Empire once again. You were in a position to see things that sounder agents had no chance for.' His eyes said traitor, but Thalric met them without flinching. For a long time they stared at each other, with neither breaking from the other's gaze.

'Do you consider that you're immortal, Regent?' Brugan asked at last.

'I am sure that if you thought it in the Empire's interest, you'd make an end of me,' replied Thalric. The