Empire in Black and Gold

‘Sir?’ he said.

‘You have done sterling work for the Rekef Outlander in your time, Major,’ Latvoc said, as the general’s eyes bored into him. ‘However, your skills could also be of use to the Rekef Inlander. The Empire must be constantly guarded from within as well as without.’

This would be more than a promotion, Thalric knew: the Rekef Inlander, the older and more favoured sibling of his own service branch, answered to nobody but the Emperor. They were a law unto themselves. They feared nothing.

Except each other murmured a treacherous thought.

And everyone feared them. They were the shadows within the army. No man knew if his neighbour was writing reports on his ill-chosen words or if his slave had passed on his drunken confessions of the night before. Every man felt the eye of the Rekef on his back, whether he was an enlisted soldier or a great general of the Empire. No man was immune, and anyone could disappear without warning or trace.

This task here, with Ulther, was Inlander work. It had been a test, then? They had set him at his old mentor’s throat to see if he were cold enough for it. He was cold, ice cold.

‘I appreciate the honour, sir, but my plans in Helleron-’

‘Can be completed by another, I am sure. Think it over, Major.’

And in the Rekef Inlander it would always be his own people who were under the knife. He would protect the Empire from treason like a surgeon saving a body from rot, by cutting out the infected part and everything close to it. Every day would be like last night then. And no doubt the call would come, one day, to set him against Aagen or some other loyal man he had once called friend.

‘If the Empire orders it, sir, I will do as I am ordered,’ he said, knowing that these next words could see the fear of the Rekef landing on his shoulders, could see him gone as surely as Ulther was gone. ‘However, if I am merely offered an invitation, I must decline. My work in the Rekef Outlander is precious to me and it will falter without my guidance.’

There was a long silence. Latvoc glanced at General Reiner, and Thalric watched for a message to pass between them, but none came that his eyes could divine.

And at the last, ‘That will be all, Major,’ said Colonel Latvoc, and Thalric turned and left the room still not knowing what their thoughts were.

Thirty-one

Dawn had come slowly to Myna, as the sun told it, but there had been a starlit dawn that had swept across the city like wildfire. It said: Kymene is free. It said: Ulther the Bloat is dead. In the minds of the people of that city, these two events were inextricably bound.

In the cellar where Chyses’ cell kept its headquarters there had been a steady influx of visitors, ambassadors arriving from other cells. Some were his old allies, others had opposed him, even fought against his people. Now they were here to see Kymene again because, of all the people in the city, she could unite them. Ulther had known it, too, but Ulther had been just as taken with her as her own people were, so had not done what he might to deprive Myna of its Maid.

Tynisa sat and watched the resistance come and go, or cluster in small groups to await their leader. Chyses went from one to another, shaking hands, clasping wrists like a soldier should. She could see he was working hard to bury old enmities, for the men he spoke most words of encouragement to were those who liked him least.

Che was taking a while to recover, or at least something was on her mind, and Salma was still sleeping despite the mounting fuss around him. He had been bound almost all the time he was imprisoned, Che had said. That must have stopped him getting much rest. She imagined him with arms dragged behind his back, sitting through the night and watching over Che. Idly she stood up and walked over to his pallet.

Tynisa had always prided herself on being independent, relying on no one. It was an easy thing to take pride in when she had never needed to do so. Her relationship with Salma had always been a joking, teasing one, underscored by an annoyance that her charms had never been quite enough to conquer him. Her relationship with Che had been, she admitted, a vain one. It had been a pleasant situation to have a plainer sister, one so earnest and good natured, and graceless.

Only when they were taken away from her had Tynisa realized how she loved them both, how they had become part of her. She knelt down beside Salma, seeing in sleep a face that he never usually presented to the world. Asleep, he looked five years younger, and it struck her that she had always assumed him older than her, and never known different. Absently she smoothed the dark hair from his forehead, and watched as his eyelids fluttered for a moment. Dream dreams of freedom, she urged him silently.

She heard no tread but suddenly felt Tisamon’s presence beside her. He wore his usual grave, melancholy expression, and she wondered whether he ever relaxed it, even when sleeping.

‘I have something to speak to you about,’ he said softly. ‘If you will.’

Where am I with him now? The fight in the sewers had broken down the wall surrounding him, but he was still exploring the new world that she presented for him. She sensed that he had now come to some decision.

She followed him over to the patch of floor that he had slept on, where his pack and few belongings lay.

‘You have something of mine,’ he said, and she did not understand.

Seeing her blank expression, he smiled bleakly. ‘Nothing I would wish on another, but it is within you. You have Atryssa’s face, her clever mind, I think, her skill, but you have something also of mine.’

Something of the Mantis, she realized. ‘I. . my Art shows nothing of your kinden, I think. .’ she said. ‘I cannot fly. I have no spines like yours.’

Mirth now, in that smile, of a wintry kind. ‘And is all Art worn so openly? Tell me what races in your veins when you fight, Tynisa. Tell me the lust in your heart when you scent blood. Tell me of your joy when blade meets blade.’

His words felt like a blow.

‘No-’

‘But yes,’ he said. ‘I have seen you fight. With a Spider’s poise, yes, but you have my people’s Art behind you, and it makes you deadly and it makes you alive.’

She recalled that moment in Stenwold’s house, standing over the slain assassin with her victory singing in her ears, and fighting the Wasps and the street thugs in Helleron, the men of the Gladhanders, the guards she cut through to get to Che and Salma. She could pin motives to all of those — to save herself, to save her friends, to pay her debts — and yet her heart had taken fire once the steel was out. Something had come to possess her then, that coursed through her like a fierce poison, that made her mad. It also made her brave and swift and fierce. She thrilled with the knowledge of her own skill even as she cut lives from bodies like a gambler shuffling cards.

‘I. .’ Her heritage, her Mantis heritage, was lurking behind this Spider face of hers, and with it all of its blood-greed, its oaths and promises, its ancient traditions and its long memory. All of this she was inheritrix to.

And it was terrible, to find that heritage inside her like a cancer, but when she met his eyes he looked as proud of her as nobody had ever been, and it was wonderful, then.

‘That sword does not fit you,’ he said. It was a Mynan shortsword she had borrowed, a heavy, inelegant thing.

‘It’s better than none,’ she suggested.

He knelt by his gear and gestured for her to do the same. She felt an odd shiver as she did so. She stood now on the far side of some barrier or threshold that he had long kept her from.

‘When we came to this city before, I had expected to meet your mother here, as you know,’ he said, not quite looking at her. ‘And I did not, and the truth of why that was so is recent for both of us. However. .’ He spread his hands, and she saw the spines on his forearms flex with this small motion. ‘I had meant. . I had thought, while we were apart. I wanted to make some gesture, to bind her to me, to bind me to her. Just something.’ A faded smile. ‘We could not wed. For my people it is a ceremony sacred, and they would slay me rather than see me united with her kind. For hers, however, their women may take many men, as they will. But I wanted to show what she meant