its struts and poles, as though a great host of invisible locusts had descended on it, tearing the fabric away as she watched. Soon even the poles themselves were gone, and she was turning towards the city itself. The great statues of the Estuarine Gate seemed to glow with a white fire as she passed them by, and she was walking on the river itself, and it seemed natural that she should do so.
Khanaphes had begun fading. In sections and pieces, the clutter of low buildings was losing substance, passing away, leaving only broad avenues and arcaded promenades between the great palaces and temples that had been the original Khanaphes. The city now transformed itself, whilst staying intrinsically the same, merely sweeping away all the accumulated detritus of five hundred years.
She sensed a presence, a collective presence, whose mind filled the city completely. The Masters remained invisible to her, but she was touched by their attention — the entire city was blanketed in it — and she knew that, after she woke, its absence would seem as shocking as a broken tooth.
Let me see you, she thought, as the streets and walls of Khanaphes wheeled and darted around her, but they were always around each corner, just out of sight.
The city was hard to focus on, its edges blurred, the light it radiated painfully bright. Perhaps this is the city's memory of itself, before the march of years eroded it all away. She moved close to one wall, trying to discern the carvings embellishing it, and in this half-dream they were words, as clear and comprehensible as a book written only yesterday. She read and read, the histories and learning of ages, and yet nothing stayed with her. The understanding flowed into and out of her head like a stream that barely disturbed the pebbles of her mind.
Is this it? Is this the Profanity? This sad half-life, this feeling of meaningless wonder. Was this what the Fir-eaters craved? She thought of their tent, their faces. It is not real, this, but it is more palatable than their reality.
She found the square before the Scriptora, lying open and bright. The city eddied and turned about her but something kept her here, some nagging feeling, until she realized it was wrong. Where is the pyramid? she asked. Where are the statues? In the centre of the square there was nothing but an old well. Is this not even the real city? Is this all some hallucination? There was now a bitter taste in her mouth.
Is this no more than a common vice? Have I been fooled again?
Yet I am thinking very clearly, for a dream-vision. She looked around the square once more. If I were dreaming this, it would be as I had already seen it. She suddenly had the feeling that this was indeed the reality, that the place she had seen and remembered was the falsehood.
I do not carry their precious blood, how can I? Is this vice wasted on me? But she knew, with the absolute certainty of dreams, that what the Fir-eaters saw as a bloodline was something more tenuous. It was to do with Aptitude. It was some old strain of the Inapt that they laid claim to, some persistent reminder of those old, old days.
Show me! she called out, and the voices of the city said, We have shown you. She drifted towards the Scriptora, and found Khanaphir men and women there, bent over tablets, scribing industriously. She thought she saw Ethmet there, too, or someone that looked very like him. These are the Ministers, back in the days when they were no more than servants of the Masters, but where are the Masters themselves?
Is that really what you are looking for, little one?
Her mind was full of voices and she felt a spurt of panic when she realized she could not tell which was her own. The thoughts flitted in and out of her, free as flies.
What am I looking for? She was catching thoughts with her bare hands, holding them, as they crawled and buzzed. What did the Masters of Khanaphes matter to her, truly? She had become so distracted by the means that she had forgotten the end. She had not come here to meet the Masters, for all that they were just out of sight, forever in the corner of her eye. She had travelled here to come to terms with her own nature — and to reach a detente with her ghost.
Achaeos! she cried. Achaeos, you led me here, so come forth now and speak to me. She did not know for sure whether she could survive regaining him here in this dream- place, only to lose him again. Perhaps this would be the end of it. She would take his hand once more, embrace him one last time, look into those white eyes of his, and then she would die and be with him, wherever the Inapt went after they shed their bodies.
Please, Achaeos, I love you, but I cannot continue living like this. Either come forth and show me what you need, or leave me. I cannot stand in twilight for ever, between what I was and what I am.
But no grey-robed figure came towards her in that flickering, painful light. She shouted out in frustration and anger: You brought me here! You drove me here! Now come forth, I demand it!
The city fell very quiet as the echoes of her unspoken words rolled back and forth across the walls of the Scriptora. The scribing Beetles were gone, even the presence of the Masters seemed to have drawn further back.
Achaeos? she asked, tentatively, because she was now sure that something was approaching.
The earth before her cracked open, the stones of the antique well shifting as something began to claw its way up the shaft. Without transition, Che felt very afraid of what it was that she had awoken. It is not Khanaphes that I have called up: it is something within me. She wanted to flee, but the cracking earth about the well-mouth was hypnotic, and she could not tear herself away. The thing rushing upwards sounded like distant thunder on the edge of hearing.
Achaeos … help me … she thought, and the thunder grew more and more urgent, getting closer without ever becoming louder, and she knew that whatever it was had now reached the very lip and was about to burst forth in all its force and fury.
There was nothing, only silence, but Che was not fooled. She knew that it was waiting at the very lip of the well.
A single tendril reached up from the darkness, quested briefly in the air, then arced downwards to dig into the sundered earth. She saw it was a briar, studded with thorns, and the sight of it instantly turned her stomach. She managed a single step back …
Another followed it, and then another, coiling and twisting as they were liberated into the open air. A darkness clung to them that she well remembered.
Oh no, oh no no no …
Something else came out, unfolding and then unfolding again — a great hinged arm, hooked and barbed, that clutched at the well's edge and tore the stones loose. The ground bucked and buckled, something vast ripping its way free. She saw long antennae spring upwards, another raptorial arm, then a triangular head with immense eyes burning with a green fire. Pierced and re-pierced by those arching thorns, the mantis lurched its way out of its chrysalis of earth, and Che felt a silent wail of horror in her mind.
The Darakyon … he was touching the Darakyon when he died. Have they taken him now? Is that why he needs me?
The mantis's killing arms wept blood, and its monstrous eyes were fixed on her as the thorns continued to penetrate its flesh, riddling it with wounds. This was the true Darakyon, the very personification of all Mantis-kinden fury and pride and futility.
Run, came a voice in her head, and she turned and ran, but the monstrous thing was immediately on her heels, red blood spilling from the myriad wounds the thorns had bored in its carapace, the shadows of its claws raking the ground on either side of her. She had called out first to Achaeos, but in the end she had just called — and she had awoken the ghost of the mad, embittered Darakyon instead.
Che felt something lurch in her stomach, a sudden feeling of disorientation. The bright light was dimming … The monster that had been about to seize her in its jagged arms was suddenly very far away, receding and receding. She felt dizzy, nauseous, impossibly weak. The enclosed, baking air surrounded her again, amid the tatty gloom of the tent. She collapsed on its floor, and heard again the husky voice of the halfbreed woman they called Mother.
