The Scarab Path

'Release the Collegiate ambassador,' Ethmet snapped back at him. 'We will listen to nothing until she is free.'

'She will be released,' Totho said. 'I won't hold her. I wanted her out of the hands of the Empire, that's all.'

'Do you make your merchant venture a sovereign state now?' Ethmet called. 'How do you dare meddle in the affairs of your betters? Release her!'

'Oh yes, we are ambitious, we in the Iron Glove,' said Totho, and his confidence was already building. 'You may not know, but Che here can fly. She can leave us right now.' He turned from the speaking horn to say something to Che, and Thalric saw her glance at the Iron Glove snapbowmen. Her wings flickered, putting her up on the very rail of the balcony.

'Say what you have to say,' she told Totho, loud enough for many of the crowd below to hear. Thalric saw another figure nip out to join her on the railing, and it took him a moment to recognize the Fly, Trallo. The sight gave him a slight edge of unease. And what has that villain been doing with the Iron Glove? Had they captured him, for information about me?

'Thank you.' Totho had returned to the horn. 'As I say, I owe you an explanation. I beg you to hear me.'

'Explain, and then gather yourselves to leave,' Ethmet told him.

'You have been deceived,' Totho's voice boomed out. 'You are victims of your own generosity, O Ministers. You are betrayed by your very guests.' There was a moment's murmuring before Totho caught up with the crowd's response. 'I don't mean myself. I don't mean this,' he said. 'This is nothing, a moment's misunderstanding, to be soon forgotten.' He waited, letting the murmur die down. His eyes sought out Thalric.

'There is an army marching on Khanaphes even as we speak,' Totho declared. 'An army of the Scorpion- kinden called the Many of Nem. Your enemies.'

There was a ripple of alarm through the crowd, but Amnon was having none of it. 'So they come again?' he roared out. 'So let them come, and we shall beat them back, as we have before. Totho, we made you welcome here, and what are the Scorpion-kinden compared to the thing you have done?'

'This is no army such as you have ever faced before,' Totho said, forcing sincerity into his words, overstressing them. Thalric realized he must have rehearsed all this, must have written his own script for this confrontation. 'These Scorpion-kinden possess new weapons, terrible weapons the like of which Khanaphes has never seen before. And why? Because they work for new masters. The Many of Nem now march under Imperial officers, and they wield Imperial arms. The Empire has set them upon your city, while their own ambassadors lurk within your walls and speak of peace!'

It was unexpected enough thatThalric ran the words back through his mind before fully grasping them. By that time he realized that everyone was now staring at him, the lone Imperial representative in all that crowd. Che was looking at him, too, and he returned her gaze and shook his head.

'What nonsense!' he said, pitching his voice to carry across the whole crowd. 'There is no Imperial attack on Khanaphes. Why would we? We have no ambitions here.' He heard that old empty promise of the Empire on his lips, betrayed a hundred times. But we have none, for what would we do with Khanaphes anyway? Give us ten years, and perhaps … 'There is no attack or, if there is, then these Scorpions come of their own accord.' He felt slightly unsteady in his stomach, though. And has there not been some piece missing, of all of this, ever since we arrived? Still, it made no sense. There was no attack. He would know if there were. They would tell me …

'Send your scouts west!' Totho demanded. 'Or just wait a day, perhaps two, and you will not need my warnings. Perhaps your hunters and farmers can already see a dustcloud on the horizon. The Empire is nearing with its Scorpion tools, I swear to you — and knowing that, what plans might they have had for the Collegiate ambassador? What could I do but rescue her from their grasp?'

The crowd was in uproar. Some were already hurrying off, perhaps to seek out family or friends. Totho's words would be across all Khanaphes before morning. Ethmet's call for silence might have stilled them, but he did not give it. Instead, he was conferring with his fellow Ministers and then with Amnon. The Royal Guard stood uneasy, looking sidelong at each other, still under their rigid discipline.

Che stepped out from the balcony, letting her wings carry her to the ground. She landed in front of Thalric, in the suddenly widening space that had appeared about him.

'I swear,' he protested, 'I know nothing of any attack. There is no attack.' He found his heart racing. They have me believing it now.

Che studied him for a long time, enough to tell him about the distance that had re-opened between them. 'Those are two different things,' she said.

'Yes, yes, they are,' he admitted. 'I must speak with Marger and the others. There has been some mistake.'

'Why would Totho make such a claim, if it were not true?'

'To buy himself time, no doubt. Or perhaps the Scorpions are raiding, for truth, and he wishes to paint them in black and yellow?' Thalric shook his head. 'There is no attack. I will speak with my people-'

'Ambassador Thalric.' Amnon appeared, abruptly looming at his side.

Thalric looked up at him. 'I need to return to my embassy-'

'You must first speak with the Ministers. They require assurances.' There was no hint of a request in Amnon's tone. Thalric cast a desperate look at Che: Trust me. There was no sign of trust in her face, though. And I have given her enough cause to doubt me, over the years.

He let his shoulders sag. 'Lead me,' he told Amnon, and fought down the urge to look back at her, as he went.

Che watched him go, biting at her lip. She felt strangely wretched for Thalric, and on the back of that came the thought: I believe him. For once in his lying life, I actually believe him. He has been out-danced by his own people.

She had to go to the embassy. She had to talk to Berjek and the others, who were even now being ushered back to safety there. This was, of all things, a diplomatic situation, but she had no idea what she, as ambassador, was supposed to do.

Come to us.

She stopped in mid-step. She was aware that, on the balcony above, Totho's people were talking to him, fast and all at once. He was trying to look her way, but he had kicked the wasps' nest, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

Cheerwell Maker, hear us.

It was not words. It was a feeling, an intense feeling washing over her like an unexpected tide. It came from all about her, from beneath her, from the very stones of Khanaphes.

Come to us.

She could not, of course. She had her duties now, whatever they might be. There were the scholars to take care of. There was Totho. There was Thalric.

Come to us, Cheerwell Maker.

She felt herself fading, drifting … the city around her losing focus. Like the Fir. But she had consumed no drug and still she felt the ghosts of ancient Khanaphes all around her. The walls swam, their idiot hieroglyphs abruptly thrusting their meanings at her, shouting at her from every wall, some of them couched in sense, some in gibberish.

Come!

She turned and walked away, but not towards the embassies. She turned and walked away, and was soon lost in the city.

His men had been picked for their ability to fly long and far. They had stopped for a few scant hours since leaving the Scorpion horde, making such time across the desert that the towering column of dust, the great battle- standard of the Many of Nem, had long been lost behind them. Now Sulvec of the Rekef had found Khanaphes.

And what a wretched place I've found. Sulvec was a major in the Rekef Inlander, by definition an ambitious man who fed his ambition any which way. This assignment would be the making of him: he would become Colonel Sulvec on his return, or not return at all. Like so many who climbed the Rekef ladder, his loyalty to the ideals of the Empire at large had been burned away by the duties he had been given. Now his loyalty