The Scarab Path

storehouses must remain full, for there are lean years foreseen in the east …

Also in this year …

'Bella Cheerwell?'

The words — her own name — startled her from her reverie. Che blinked, stared at the wall she was crouching before. For a moment the hieroglyphs only marched their incomprehensible procession before her eyes. Then they swam and twisted, as though suddenly viewed through tears. Comprehension came as naturally as breathing, and she saw: Also in this year did the First Soldier of Khanaphes take to the West River Plains so as to turn aside the advances of the Many of Nem …

But what did that remind her of …?

'Che! What's wrong with you?'

It was an irritation that would not go away. She shook her head and looked up to see a figure standing beside her. Beside her, not over her, though she knelt, for it was Flykinden: a man in a traveller's garb and cloak, with a little snarl of beard at his chin, in the Spider manner. His face seemed familiar to her …

A tenday of personal history slipped, like a great rock mass long hanging, and descended on her without mercy, leaving no survivors. Che gasped, flinched back from Trallo so hard that she bounced her head against the wall she had just been studying. Khanaphes — the Fir eaters — the hunt — Thalric — Totho — the Empire — war! It was all so much to fit in place that she nearly choked on it.

'Trallo-?' She stared at the Fly wildly, trying to work out precisely where they were. Khanaphes, yes, but she did not recognize this district. Beyond the worried-looking Fly, the shaven-headed people were going about their business in a narrow street, without even a glance for the mad foreign woman. They continued herding their goats and sheep and aphids, carrying jars of water or oil, or baskets of grain.

'Che,' said Trallo patiently, trying to capture her attention. 'I have been looking for you for two days.' He let that sink in before adding, out of sheer exasperation, 'And do you know how difficult it is to stay out of my sight for two days? People have been worried sick. All sorts of things have been going wrong. You're supposed to be an ambassador and-'

'And whose money paid for all this searching? Which of all your masters?' she snapped back at him, before she could stop herself. She grimaced instantly. 'Trallo, I'm sorry …'

'No, that was a fair shot,' he said, not seeming at all hurt or even repentant. 'My own house got a little untidy towards the end, but then I wasn't expecting open war between the Iron Glove and your Wasp fellow.' His expression soured. 'I wasn't expecting open war, full stop. Che, I won't pretend that your halfbreed friend hasn't wanted me to track you down, but it's your own people who are going mad right now. After all that's happened, they want to get straight out of town — and, to be frank, so do I.'

'All that's happened?' Ah yes. 'So … the rumour …'

'The Scorpions are coming, and they're going to be here, well, really soon. Really, really soon. Whether they've had all the Imperial help that the Glove have been claiming, that's unproven for now, but they're coming sure as death and taxes. The Khanaphir are putting their army together as though the point of the whole exercise was just to give them the chance to hold parades. You can't move through most of the streets of this city for soldiers marching about and crowds waving at them.'

Che stood up, realizing as she did so that her robe was filthy, ingrained with dirt and dust. How long have I …? 'I have been researching,' she explained uncertainly.

'Surely you have,' Trallo replied. 'Now let's just …'

'You don't understand. I have been reading the histories of Khanaphes — the true histories.' She waved towards the wall with all its bewildering array of sigils. 'These old walls, they're the ones that matter. It's all there in plain view if you can only read it.'

Trallo was staring at her as one stares at the suddenly mad. 'Surely,' he said again. 'You're a credit to the College. Now, how about you come on back to the embassy?'

'Who were the Masters of Khanaphes, Trallo?' she asked him abruptly.

'You want my call? There never were any,' he replied in a harsh whisper, with a suspicious look at the natives passing behind him. 'Now let's-'

'But there were,' she said simply. What knowledge she had deciphered, during those missing, dream-lost days, was filtering back. 'They write about them all the time, their commands, their wishes, their guidance.'

'Sure, sure — and all of it through the Ministers, I'll bet. Now-'

'They speak of them walking through the city, Trallo.'

The Fly took a deep breath. 'Now listen, Bella Cheerwell, things have gone all to the pits since you disappeared, and we've a good way to drop yet. Can we not just stand here talking about something that's so long ago it matters less to me than a midge's fart, and perhaps just come back to the embassy where you're supposed to be, perhaps, maybe?'

'It matters, Trallo,' she told him firmly. 'It's more important than anything.' How did I manage to lose two days? she was asking herself, horrified, but something of that calm, that supernatural, overwhelming obsession, still clung to her. It tastes like Fir, she thought. But I do not actually need the drug. She had not even needed to memorize the alphabet in that book that the Khanaphir stonemasons now copied from in mindless rote. Simply being exposed to it had operated some change within her. The magic of ancient Khanaphes, and then the inevitable thought: The voice of the Masters calling to me from five hundred years ago. She still did not know who they had been, those lost Masters, but it was as though, across all the intervening years, they wanted her to find out.

It was their voice that led me away, to come here …

'Trallo, I can't come with you-' she started, but his face took on an ugly cast.

'Petri's dead, Che.'

She stared at him, wordless.

'Is that immediate enough for you, Bella Cheerwell? Has that got through to you?'

'Dead?'

'They found her on the steps of that pyramid in front of the Scriptora — I saw her body, before the locals took possession of it. Broken neck. She'd fallen backwards off it. But I saw her face.' He shook his head, unable to properly describe it.

Petri's dead? Petri Coggen's babbling tirades about this city being out to get her, her delusions, her fears, her pleas to be taken out of Khanaphes. And she confided in me, and I did nothing. It was like cold water washing the dust away from her. The last ebbing of the trance was falling from her. 'Poor woman,' she said, hollowly. 'Poor, poor woman.' When she met Trallo's gaze again, her eyes were steady. 'Let's head for the embassy. We can talk on the way.'

As they approached the side arch leading through to the Place of Foreigners, her thoughts turned inevitably to the maze of diplomacy she saw awaiting her. And what am I going to do with Thalric now? 'What's the Imperial reaction been, Trallo?'

'Blatant guilt,' he said, from her elbow. She halted, frowning down at him,

'Explain.'

'They've gone, Bella Cheerwell. They've upped and left. If they're still even in the city, they're keeping their heads down.'

'All of them?'

'Every single stripy one of them.'

The news seemed oddly leaden. Trallo was right: it indicated guilt, surely, to leave so suddenly and secretly, once the news was announced. Have they gone to join their fellows amongst the Scorpions? And then: So I will not talk this over with Thalric, then. I suppose he has made his decision, once again. It seemed incredible that one man had been given so many choices in life, and made them all so differently.

'What's the feeling among the others?' she asked.

'Manny wants out of Khanaphes yesterday. Our great warrior has decided that war isn't for him, after all,' Trallo said drily. 'They raised the chain on the river, though — that big old gate your lot were so interested in? Worked like it was made only last tenday in Solarno. Old Ethmet has said they'll let you out, when you're ready to go. He's very apologetic. And distracted, too, what with suddenly having a war to run.'