Empire in Black and Gold

magnate. Tensed inside, relaxed to the outside world, she strode forward as if she had no care in the world.

A thing of some sort came out of the shack. It was mostly shrouded in a cloak, but looked as though the man beneath was smuggling insects under it. A face she took for a theatre mask, until it moved, looked at her balefully. There was a crossbow in this apparition’s malformed hands. She started wondering whether she could dodge a bolt and get to him before he had recocked it, and decided that she could.

Behind him was. .

Behind him was Totho, staring at her. The sight of him brought an unexpected rush of relief to her. That even one of her friends was still alive on his feet in this greedy city seemed amazing to her. She had not realized, until now, how little hope she had been husbanding.

‘Totho!’ she called and began to run forward, but the ugly man raised his crossbow threateningly.

‘You stay right there,’ he called. ‘Not a step, or you’ll have this beauty here to deal with.’

‘Totho, what’s going on?’ she demanded. Her hand was already tight on the rapier grip and, without meaning to, she had stepped forward. Instantly the crossbowman loosed, the bolt diving neatly into the dirt before her. She tensed, but the bow was already recocked somehow, another bolt gleaming there.

‘Ask her,’ the ugly man snapped at Totho, who swallowed visibly.

‘Tynisa,’ he called. ‘What was the name of the man you fought in our match against the Shell?’

‘What? Totho, what is going on?’

‘It’s really, really important that you answer me,’ he said. ‘Tynisa, please.’ She could see the man with the crossbow getting tense. Her calculations on reaching him had gone to tatters.

‘I fought Seladoris,’ she said, frowning. ‘You fought Adax of Tark, and drew. You broke his nose. What is going on?’

The relief in the pair of them was visible. The ugly man lowered the crossbow and took the tension off the string. She approached carefully, and Totho came forward to meet her. She thought at first he was going to embrace her, lost friend to lost friend, but his nerve failed and they just clasped hands instead.

‘I’m so happy you’re safe,’ he said. ‘I felt terrible. . leaving you there.’

‘We all left each other,’ she said. ‘Let’s just hope Che and Salma left us as well as we left them.’

He hung his head, although she had not meant it as a reprimand. ‘This,’ he said, pointing at the ugly man, ‘is Scuto, Stenwold’s man.’

Scuto looked even worse close-to than at crossbow’s point. He leered. ‘Come on in,’ he invited her. ‘You’ve got some catching up to do.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said, when confronted with the story of Bolwyn’s death and apparent rebirth.

‘Shame. What with you being a Spider-kinden, I thought you might,’ Scuto said. ‘Seemed like your kind of thing, running off with other people’s faces.’

She gave him a sour look, which was like spitting into the tempest. ‘I have lived most of my life in Collegium, so I’m not up on the latest cosmetic fashions in Seldis this season.’

Scuto shrugged. ‘So it’s a worry, but not one we can do anything against.’

‘But you see why I had to ask,’ Totho put in.

‘I suppose so.’ Tynisa frowned at the array of incomprehensible mechanics around her. ‘This must be home away from home for you. You’ve landed on your feet.’

‘So what happened to you?’ he asked, and for a second she was about to tell him: the Halfway House, the gangsters, the deaths. For just a second she was proud of it all.

Then she looked at his face and remembered who he was, and who she was, and where they had come here from. In Collegium criminals did not boast about their deeds but kept them secret. In Collegium there was a rule of law, and murderers did not swagger about openly in the street.

‘Just surviving,’ she said. ‘Just making my way. So where are Che and Salma?’

‘Best information suggests they took refuge with some of Stenwold’s family,’ Scuto said.

‘But I tried there and they said. .’ But of course it had been Sinon saying it. She had not asked them herself. What if he had betrayed her, after all?

‘That they ain’t seen ’em,’ Scuto agreed. ‘That’s the line they took with my boys as well.’

She nodded, relieved.

‘Thing is,’ the Thorn Bug continued. ‘I got definite witnesses who saw some fellow in a real fancy robe and a yellow hide go into one such townhouse. Now I ain’t sure myself, but I reckon that sounds like your man, ’specially when he’s got a Beetle-girl with dyed hair alongside him. Only now everyone’s claiming they ain’t seen ’em.’

‘Maybe they’re just scared the Wasps will find them,’ Tynisa suggested.

‘Stenwold’ll get to the foot of it, though.’ The prospect did not seem to delight Scuto.

‘Stenwold? He’s here?’

‘He got to Helleron today,’ Totho confirmed.

‘Some of mine met him at the usual place, told him the state of things,’ Scuto explained. ‘Wanted him to come here, but he’s always got to do things his own way. The only reason he keeps me around is he ain’t invented a way of being in two cities at once. No, he’s gone off asking questions himself, so cobblers knows where the bugger is now.’

‘But. . the Wasps, they’re hunting him,’ said Tynisa.

‘Think I don’t know?’ Scuto said balefully. ‘Think I want him beetling off across the city? And it’s not as if he don’t know either. But there you have it. You just can’t tell a man his own business these days.’ He grimaced, exposing his yellowing fangs at them. ‘He’ll just have to deal with it himself, whatever it is.’

There was a hurried hammering on the door. A boy, the same Fly-kinden boy Tynisa had spoken to earlier, called in, ‘Scuto, someone’s coming. Someone real big and heavy.’

‘Stenwold?’ Tynisa asked.

‘I’ll tell him you said that.’ Scuto picked his crossbow up again and cocked it. ‘No. They already know ol’ Sten, around here.’ He peered through one of the shack’s half-boarded windows. ‘Hell. Scorpion-kinden, and he’s big all right.’

‘Scorpion?’ Tynisa gingerly peered over his spiked shoulder. ‘I know him.’ It was Akta Barik from the Halfways. For a moment she wondered if he had been sent after her, but if Sinon had wanted her dealt with, he had been given far better chances than this. ‘Let me speak to him.’

‘He’s all yours.’ Scuto kicked the door open for her, keeping the crossbow handy.

Barik stopped when he saw her, waited for her to approach him. He had his monstrous sword over his shoulder, its scabbard-tip almost dragging in the earth. She knew she could draw before he had even got both hands on it, but his hands were weapons in themselves.

‘Hello, Barik,’ she said cautiously. Behind the fence of his teeth, his expression was unreadable.

‘Got news for you. Came in after you left.’ His quiet voice just carried to her. She decided she would have to trust him more than this, or she would miss whatever he was saying. She stepped closer, well within the reach of his sword, still outside the reach of hers. He gave a small nod of acknowledgement.

‘Slave deal going on, north-east camp. I was shifting some merchandise for the chief,’ he said. ‘Only I saw one there, in a gang they were shipping out. He was a Commonwealer, Dragonfly-kinden. Not been many Wealers in Helleron since they had that big war in the northlands.’

‘A slave?’ she said, appalled.

‘Might not be your man but’ — he waved a taloned hand — ‘Sinon reckoned I should tell you.’

‘Thank him for me,’ she said earnestly. ‘Tell him, when I’m back this way, I owe him, just a little.’

He nodded. This was the proper way of doing business.

As Barik stomped off, she slipped back into Scuto’s lair. ‘We have another problem,’ she announced.

Sixteen

‘Ah, Stenwold,’ Elias said, as his visitor came in. ‘One moment, will you?’ He made an ostentatious show of checking some figures on his scroll, adding them up, underlining the total. Only when he had replaced the reservoir pen in its gold holder did he look up, smiling. ‘I confess, I had no idea you were expected in Helleron, let alone out