Dragonfly Falling

just sit back and let them. On account of. it’s like you said, just then. Tark is under attack and, well, nobody really likes Tark. Anyway. I certainly don’t.’ She looked from face to face. One of the Beetles nodded, but there was precious little encouragement to be found anywhere else.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘so Tark goes down soon enough, because these Wasps, they’ve done Ant-kinden cities before. There’s a place called Maynes east of Helleron, and they took that years ago, and they’re much better at it now. Tark is gone, let’s say, and who cares? Only next they head for. ’ She wanted to say Merro, her own home, but that would not have strengthened her case. ‘For Kes, say. They get some boats and lay siege to the place. And of course, I suppose you don’t get on well with the Kessen either?’ She looked at them, and they gave her no response, but this time she waited until a smile twitched the Queen’s lips, who said, ‘The enmity between the cities of our kinden is well documented, Fly-woman. Make your case.’

‘Well it’s made, then, Your Majesty,’ Sperra said, ‘because we’re all sitting about glaring at each other, and waving flags every time one of our neighbours gets got, until here they are, at the gates of Sarn, say, and who do we call upon?’

‘We are Sarn,’ said one of the tacticians shortly. ‘Therefore we fight our own wars.’

‘But what if they had ten times as many soldiers, and better weapons, and they can fly, and just shoot you down with their bare hands? What then? What if they’re too big for any one city to take on? That’s what Master Maker keeps saying: there are lots of them, more than any one city could fight.’

A silence. Again she looked from face to face. ‘Please, do you not believe me?’ she asked.

The Queen shared a moment’s glance with some of her advisers. ‘Your words are understood, but we have more immediate concerns. You would not wish us, I am sure, to have us rush to the aid of Tark while the Vekken besiege Collegium. We shall remember your words, however. Once our present business with Vek is resolved, then we shall speak further. We see some merit in what you say.’

And that, Sperra realized, was the extent of her royal audience.

‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it?’ Che said.

Achaeos sent her a sidelong glance, but then admitted, ‘I have not been sleeping well, recently.’

She allowed herself a smile. ‘Am I to blame for that?’

‘When I do sleep, I have dreams. uncertain ones.’

She was about to give a flippant answer but thought better of it. ‘I suppose dreams are important to your people.’

‘They are, and I think. I fear I know where these dreams come from. You remember the Darakyon, and what we both saw there?’

‘I could never forget.’ Although she had tried. It had been after he helped rescue her from the Wasp slave cells in Myna: they had been heading for Helleron and in the way was the knotted little forest of the Darakyon. A Mantis-kinden name, she knew, but no Mantis-kinden lived there now. However, Achaeos had told her that those who had once called the place their home, centuries before, had never left. All nonsense, of course. All superstitious foolishness from a people of hermits and mystics, except that one night he and Tisamon had taken her into that wood and shown her. It had been Achaeos reaching out to her, over the barrier that separated their peoples’ worldviews.

And she had seen. In glimpses, perhaps, and for that she was thankful, but she had caught sight of what still dwelled between the twisted trunks of the Darakyon, in all its hideous, tortured glory, and her world had cracked, and let in something new.

They were almost at the nameless little gambling den by the river, and there were plenty of shadows that could have hidden anything. She allowed her eyes to pierce through them, calling on her Art, but the shiver did not leave her. ‘Are they. have they come here?’ she asked him.

‘No. They could not, I think. But these dreams. they are calling to me. I do not know why, but I will in time.’

They paused at the door, nerving themselves. The Arcanum, mostly in the person of Gaff, the stocky little man of unknown kinden, had not been forthcoming. They had met with him several times, and sometimes with the Mantis Scelae as well, but received only evasion. Now word had come for them. They had been summoned by the Arcanum. Something had changed.

‘Do you think it could be a trap?’ she asked, and he nodded glumly. ‘But these are your people,’ she protested.

‘The Arcanum are not my people,’ he said. ‘They are the political arm of the Skryres, and they have no one leader but serve many in Dorax and Tharn. Much of the time, it is said, they run the personal errands of their masters, who do not always agree. The Arcanum has turned on its own people before now, so why not against us?’

‘What option do we have?’ she asked him.

‘None — but be ready for trouble.’

They saw Gaff as soon as they entered, in the midst of some game of chance. He noticed them too and made hurried apologies to his fellows, leaving money on the table and hurrying over to them.

‘You took your time,’ he grumbled. ‘Come right with me, sir and lady. There’s serious talk to be done.’

He took them into a backroom, heading past the place’s owner, and then into a room beyond, that must have been part of the building adjoining. It was dark in there, a single lamp burning on a desk, and it was crowded. When Gaff had taken his place there was quite a gathering of people ranged there facing them. Che felt her hand drift towards her sword-hilt now, though it would now be of no use.

Half a dozen were Mantis-kinden. Scelae was seated on one corner of the desk while the rest stood, lean and hard men and women watching the newcomers suspiciously. One bore a sword-and-circle pin that recalled Tisamon’s: a Weaponsmaster, then, who would be more than sufficient on her own to blot them out if she chose. Of the other kinden four were Flies, and three of those were robed and cowled like their masters. One was a Commonwealer Dragonfly. There were only three Moths in all that number. An elderly woman sat on the corner of the desk across from Scelae and a young man stood behind her, in an arming jacket with a bandolier of throwing blades strapped across it. Central behind the desk, though, was the obvious cause of all this assembly. He was thin and balding and, taken alone, his grey, hollow face and white eyes did not suggest any great pre-eminence, but Che could almost feel the crackle of authority surrounding him.

‘Master Achaeos of Tharn,’ the man said in a precise voice. ‘Mistress Cheerwell Maker of Collegium. Your recent careers have been quite remarkable. Do you know what we are?’

Che and Achaeos exchanged glances. ‘You represent the Arcanum, Master,’ Achaeos said.

‘We are the Arcanum, as far as its presence in Sarn now stands,’ the balding Moth explained. ‘This is all of us.’

The two newcomers exchanged glances, while the assembled agents watched them implacably.

‘You have come to us spreading warnings about the Wasp Empire. We are, of course, aware of those savages and we have no wish to involve ourselves in their affairs, either as allies or enemies. Still less do we wish to jump to the call of some Beetle magnate. We have retreated from the ugly and violent world that your kinden have built, and we would prefer that to be the end of it.’

And why get everyone together just to tell us this? Che felt her sword-hand twitch, but fought the instinct down. There was more to be said. There had to be.

‘You have no great reputation on Tharn, Achaeos,’ the Moth spymaster said, ‘and few friends either. Your choice of paramour has seen to that. We have no obligation to you, still less to this woman.’

A missed chance for an insult. Che found that she was holding her breath, and let it out carefully.

‘Master, I await your “however”,’ said Achaeos. ‘Or are all of these to be our assassins?’

Scelae smiled at that, and Che saw that she must have been murderess for the Arcanum in her day. The spymaster glanced at her, and then back.

‘We had considered it, but we would not have called you to a meeting for the purpose.’ The shadow of humour twitched over his face. ‘We are not so procedural as that. So here is our “however”, Achaeos. Matters have changed. Information has come to us that has forced our hand, however much we resent it. I have spoken, by our traditional ways, to the Skryres of Dorax. They have called me home to take fuller counsel with them. They have said that we must do what can be done, against these Wasp-kinden — for now, until the circumstances change.’