On the back of that history, Thalric’s reluctant, ‘Why?’ was hardly surprising.
‘Because we are alike, she and I,’ Che reminded him.
‘You are not alike.’
‘You know what I mean,’ she pressed.
He glanced at Varmen, who appeared dead to the world, and then leant close to her, keeping his voice low. ‘So you have lost your Aptitude,’ he told her, as though she might any day now rediscover it on the road. ‘So the Empress has the same… condition. Believe me, you are not alike in any other way.’ He did not voice his reasons, because she already knew them, but perhaps also because to give voice to them would be to somehow invite Seda’s attention – for all that Thalric was Apt and did not believe in such things.
Because of the blood, Che thought. He had told her, when they had been trapped in the tombs: how the Empress lived off the blood of others, mostly slaves. It was as if she had become, in her own body, a personification of the Empire’s own creed of rapacious conquest. By Thalric’s account, the Empress Seda drank and bathed in the spilt lives of others.
And draws power from them, came the thought to Che then. It seemed perfectly obvious to her that it was so, that such behaviour was not simply the excess of an absolute ruler whose Empire overflowed with expendable human property. When Che tried to examine her certainty regarding this, she could find no train of logic in it, and yet she knew it to be true. The blood itself is power. It is an old and evil magic.
‘The old fortress at Solamen, or whatever the ’Wealers used to call it,’ Thalric enquired, ‘is that back in use now?’
‘Surely,’ Varmen replied. ‘Crammed full of Principality troops, more of ’em every month, seems like. Now, you said you had pass papers for the Three-city soldiers, that right?’
‘Signed by the head of the Consensus, no less,’ Che agreed.
‘Makes it easier not to have to dodge them,’ their guide allowed. ‘In that case, if you’re happy they’re good, let’s call in with the locals.’
An hour after that and they were being escorted through an armed camp amid Mynan soldiers in their black and red armour, and a small detachment of Szaren Bees who seemed to be engineers. Che caught the outlines of some manner of siege artillery but, in her present state of Inaptitude, she was unable to identify what kind.
‘They seem to be a little anxious about something,’ she remarked to her companions.
‘Oh, you’ll see the reason soon enough,’ Varmen assured her. ‘I reckon they’ve got cause. Don’t blame ’em at all, me.’
The Mynan in charge of the camp studied their papers lengthily enough for Che to begin wondering if Kymene had not betrayed them by some hidden message. Eventually the man reluctantly agreed that they could pass through, although he was clearly suspicious of anyone who might want to. He herded them out of his camp immediately afterwards, as if worried that they would be stealing secrets or counting the number of his soldiers.
‘Friendly folk around these parts,’ was all Varmen would say about that.
Solamen, which had been called Shol Amen before the war, held the only pass between the Barrier Ridge and this side of the mountains. For centuries it had marked the easternmost point of the Commonweal, denying the barbarous tribesmen the road to the wealthy and civilized lands beyond. Then, a few generations back, those same tribesmen had been united by a man who became their first Emperor, and proceeded to conquer a great many of their neighbours, absorb a great deal of artifice and military theory, and decide that the lands of the Dragonflies were ripe for conquest.
‘It was the Sixth that captured this place, wasn’t it?’ Thalric asked, as they gazed up at it.
‘None other,’ Varmen replied, with such fierce and automatic pride that Che knew he must have been present when it happened.
Solamen had then comprised a grand castle built high up the mountainside, with a good view of the road. Che could imagine defending troops sallying forth, in the air and on horseback, to chase down any strangers trying to breach the Commonweal’s veil of isolation.
Perhaps half of the original structure still stood, pocked by cracks and craters from the assault of the engines. Commonwealer architecture had never been intended to stand up against heavy siege, and such engines had not even existed when places such as Solamen were built, nor foreseen by even the greatest of sages.
There had been some new construction, to balance the damage: a stone-walled compound at the castle’s base, within which less magnificent but more durable buildings had been installed. The Empire had used the place as a way station for its troops, but it had not been considered a fortress by the Wasps. The initial Imperial advance of the Twelve-year War had taken the battle far enough west for Solamen to have served no useful defensive function.
Since the Empire’s hand had been lifted from these lands, however, it was clear that the old fortress had returned to its original purpose. Most particularly there were now dots circling the sky above, and as the three travellers drew near it was clear that Solamen’s current masters had sent out a welcome for them.
Thalric watched the soldiers get closer, wishing he had invested in a telescope. Varmen had already halted the horses and climbed down, instructing his employers to let him do the talking.
‘Is that…?’ Che was squinting up. ‘Do I see Imperial colours?’ Her Art let her see in utter darkness, as Thalric had cause to know, but he was aware that her eyes were less acute than his own in daylight. All the same, he realized that she was right. There was definitely a touch of the black and gold to their welcomers.
But that’s not right, he thought, still trying to discern the details. They’re Dragonflies – they must be. No Wasp flies like that.
There were half a dozen of them landing in a loose arc across their path, and Varmen need not have worried about his companions. Thalric and Che were too busy staring to have anything to say.
They were Dragonflies indeed, the same slender, golden-skinned breed that Thalric remembered well from the Twelve-year War, and that for Che presumably recalled her dead friend, the Commonwealer prince. Four men and two women, they held their bows at the ready, arrows nocked but not drawn back. All had armour of chitin and leather, except for one man who wore most of a full suit of proper Commonweal noble’s mail: iridescent plates of insect shell over fine chain.
Each of them was decked out in black and yellow, but instead of the Empire’s uniform stripes, the patterns varied wildly. Only the colouring was the same, dyed or painted on. Even the fletchings of their arrows followed the theme, and the man in fancy armour had half his face tattooed black.
As the Dragonflies inspected the three travellers, their look was not wholly that of suspicious border guards. There was a wariness there that Thalric could not immediately place.
‘Why do you seek to enter the Principalities?’ demanded their leader, he of the painted face.
‘Me?’ Varmen responded casually. ‘Just a guide, me. Don’t want any problems. Just paid to show these two the best roads.’
‘And what’s their business?’ the Dragonfly countered, pointing at Thalric with one end of his bow.
‘Oh, traders,’ was Varmen’s explanation. ‘Merchants, you know.’
Thalric winced, because traders would be travelling with a great deal more baggage than Varmen’s little pack-beetle could accommodate. The Dragonflies seemed to be of the same mind, for they closed in a little, and the arrowheads were wavering upwards along with the level of their suspicions.
‘Traders?’ their leader spat disbelievingly.
‘You know, fresh out of Capitas,’ Varmen continued, for all that Thalric was on the point of telling him to shut up. ‘Long way, you know, from Capitas, but they’re very keen to, you know, trade.’
It was as if there was some mindlink between Varmen and the people out of Solamen, because one by one they clearly leapt to some conclusion that his words alone could not account for. There was a nervous shuffling amongst them.
Fear? Thalric wondered, but there was more than simple fear there.
‘Capitas, is it?’ the leader asked cautiously.
‘Oh, there are plenty of traders out of Capitas who want to know this part of the world better. News of your princes has reached them there, and they see a lot of, you know, profit in making deals over here, if you see what I mean.’
The Dragonflies apparently did see what he meant, for all that Thalric did not.
‘We should…’ one of them began, as their leader actually looked plaintively at Varmen for guidance.
