Empire in Black and Gold

Auxillians.’

‘I’d noted that,’ Stenwold said. ‘I was surprised to see it.’

‘The Wasps’ve got no imagination,’ sneered Chyses. ‘There’s a detachment of men and women from Myna serving as Auxillians far east of here, and instead they pass us a bunch of Sa’en Grasshoppers to keep the peace, as though it’s just the same. They see us all as dirt. They don’t make any distinctions.’

Stenwold nodded. He had never been to Sa but he had known a few Grasshopper-kinden. They could certainly fight, when they wanted to, but they were a peaceful people by nature, a thoughtful people: fighters, perhaps, but not warriors. Still, it was not in the Wasps’ nature to make exceptions regarding the way their slave races served them.

‘The more they tighten their grip on us,’ said Chyses, ‘the closer together they bring us.’ It was obviously a slogan that he was repeating. ‘This here is Toran Awe. She’s a sergeant-auxillian in the militia. Tell him.’

The Grasshopper-kinden gave Stenwold a brief bow. ‘There are not so many outlander prisoners being kept in the palace cells,’ she said. ‘Locals mostly, and anything else raises rumour. Three came in not long ago: a Beetle girl, a Commonweal Dragonfly and a dancer.’

‘I don’t know about the dancer, but the other two must be ours.’ Stenwold’s gaze twitched unwillingly to Achaeos, who was sitting cross-legged on a displaced block of masonry and staring straight back at him.

‘Then we can help you,’ Chyses said. ‘And you can help us. Because we need a rescue too.’

Twenty-five

They had both ankles pinned down now, and one wrist, and she turned frantically to the man tugging at the buckle. She knew him: he was the man they had come to Myna with, the one Thalric had spoken to. Desperation brought his name to her, when nothing else could.

‘Aagen! You’re Aagen, aren’t you?’ She tried to keep her voice steady, instead hearing the ragged mess she made of it. He glanced at her briefly and pulled the strap tight.

‘Thalric said you were an. . an artificer? Is that right? You’re not a soldier? Please listen to me. I’m an artificer. I studied mechanics. Please. .’ She yanked at the strap but there was no give in it.

He was now giving her a pitying look. ‘Of course I’m an artificer,’ he said, and she went cold all over. Of course he was an artificer: for the Wasps, this was an artificer’s job — the same as repairing an automotive or making a pump, and no more or less worth the attention of a trained professional.

‘You’re going to. . to torture me?’

He looked unhappy about it, but it was too small a concession to common humanity to do her any good. He was a Wasp of the Empire, and he was going to do it anyway, unhappy or not.

‘Good work, Aagen,’ said that hateful voice, as Thalric strode in and admired the handiwork. ‘I told you it would all come back to you.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘Oh cheer up.’ Thalric seemed to have abandoned his angst of the previous night. Now he was all energy. ‘You two can leave us,’ he told the attendant soldiers. ‘This is for our ears only.’

They looked a little put out at that. Perhaps they had been looking forward to the excruciation of a Beetle girl. Still, Thalric watched them stonily until they left, and then bolted the door behind them.

‘Thalric,’ Che’s voice was a little hoarse from the screaming, ‘you don’t have to do this.’

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

‘Thalric, please,’ she said. She could feel tears springing to her eyes. Aagen was — she shuddered — laying out a medical kit beside her, unrolling the pocketed strip of cloth to reveal the gleaming points of the probes and the clips and the scalpels. ‘Please don’t do this. You’re a. . an intelligent man, a civilized man.’

Thalric was smiling at her now, in a terribly derisive way. ‘Has all that spirit dissipated through the drain in your cell, Miss Maker? What a loss that will be to humanity.’

‘Captain Thalric, this is. . beneath you,’ she told him, but still her voice quavered, despite her best efforts.

‘So I shouldn’t use this expedience to get what I want from you?’

‘No. . No. .’

‘So you’re ready to talk?’

‘I. .’ She swallowed. ‘Yes. Yes I’m ready.’

‘It’s a shame then that I’m no longer ready to listen,’ he told her. His eyes, above that smile, were ice. ‘Fire up your machine, Aagen.’

The artificer hesitated, just for a second, and for Che that meant a second more of freedom from pain and she could have blessed him for it. Then he strode across the room and started pulling levers. Somewhere below them there was a boiler room, where a head of steam had been got up some time before. The metal arms above her shuddered into life almost immediately with a great hiss and a rattle.

‘Louder!’ called Thalric. ‘I want to hear it roar!’

Aagen glanced at him wildly but did as he was bid, raising the pressure until Che would have had trouble answering any questions above it. Maybe they just wanted to make her scream.

But that wasn’t Thalric’s way. She narrowed her eyes, watching him. He was oblivious to her, now beckoning Aagen over.

‘The time has come,’ she heard him say, ‘when I need your services, Aagen.’

The artificer glanced at their victim, but Thalric shook his head impatiently. ‘Not as a professional but as a loyal citizen of the Empire.’

Aagen liked that even less, from his expression, but Thalric was beckoning him over to the far end of the room, and he came when called. With the rumble of the steam engine and the ringing of the suspended tool-arms filling the room, Thalric bent close to him and spoke carefully and clearly. There were patches that Che could hear, but patches only. It was enough to set her mind racing even so.

‘I want you to find a place. .’ she made out, followed by, ‘. . must know. Then go to the. . waiting for you. . in chains. .’ By now she was craning sideways, trying to squeeze every word she could from Thalric’s murmuring.

‘. . no one, not even me. . let you know, if I can. . not then. . self scarce.’

She realized that even if there was someone listening at the door, or even from behind some false panel in the walls, they would hear none of it. To the outside world it would seem that Thalric had a prisoner in the torture room, and the machines themselves were drowning out the sounds of whatever evils he was enacting.

Thalric was obviously asking for some confirmation, and Aagen was nodding, unhappy still, voicing some objection that Che could not catch at all.

Thalric grinned wickedly. ‘. . say I share the attraction. . never know. .’ He clapped Aagen on the shoulder, the same comradely gesture he had made before.

Finally, something Che heard all of, for all the good it did her. ‘Now dispatch it straight,’ Thalric instructed, and Aagen nodded, not a military salute but the nod of a friend with an errand to fulfil. Then he unbolted the door and left her alone with Thalric.

The Wasp captain wandered over to the steam engine and studied the levers. Che understood he was about to release the steam from the system and stop the noise, and that he was not entirely sure how to go about it. She saw the tool heads above her, shivering with steam-driven power, imagined a mechanized arm of one holding the drills dropping suddenly, unfolding like the sting of a scorpion, flicking its steel tip out into her. .‘Thalric!’ she yelled desperately. ‘Thalric!’

He glanced over at her.

‘The one at the end! The red band!’

His lips twitched, and for a moment she thought he was not going to comply at all, but then he pulled the lever up, and she heard the steam venting from the system somewhere above.

The roar of the machine died away and soon the quiet in the small room was deafening.

His footsteps, as he came over to the bench, sounded like thunderclaps. For a long time, far longer than she liked, he stared down at her wordlessly, though his expression spoke volumes. He was perhaps considering just