The Scarab Path (44 page)

She
turned away from their scathing looks and found herself facing the grand arch
that led into the Place of Government, towards the Scriptora and the pyramid
with its eternal watchers.

And tonight the statues have come to life
. The struggling
part of herself was rising to the surface fast now, howling for her to wake up.
Here in her dream there were things that she did not want to see. Her feet were
moving her forward, a pace at a time, with a sleepwalker’s slow inevitability.
She felt the collective gaze of the foreign ambassadors prickling against her
back, but none made a move to help her.

Help me
, and yet there was no help, and her traitor feet
kept taking her, pace by pace, towards that arch ahead. She tried to close her
eyes against it, but this was a dream and she could not block it out.

All I wanted to do was leave
, she wailed in protest, and
the answer, in crystal-clear tones, came back to her.

We do not wish you to leave.

But what about what
I
want?
Except that was beyond the point. She remembered then that she was a slave,
that all her race were slaves, and that this dream came from the far past, when
what any Beetle-kinden woman wanted carried no more weight than a grain of
sand.

But we have broken from all that! The revolution …

But it
was a dream from the past, and the revolution had never happened, and besides:
this was Khanaphes where her people carried their shackles inside their minds
every day, and were joyful about it.

She was
now at the arch and stepping into its shadow. The steps of the pyramid rose
before her. If she craned her gaze upwards she could see the first hint of
white stone.

No!

She made
a sudden, furious effort to wrest herself away from the dream – and abruptly
she was falling, lurching from her bed in a tangle of sheets, and striking the
floor with a cry of panic that must have woken half the embassy. She stayed
motionless but trembling, waiting for some revenant left from the dream to rise
up from within her mind and recapture her. Then she heard footsteps, and people
suddenly shocked into wakefulness were shouting at one another.

I must tell Che
, she thought.
She’s
the only one who might understand
.

*

Che had
not gone outside since the hunt. The rooms of the embassy had become her shell,
the blather of the academics her unseen shield.

She had
not seen Achaeos’s agonized form again since the hunt, either. She imagined it
still hanging there inside the wicker cage of the idol, haranguing the
Mantis-kinden for their lack of proper faith.

I am running out of places to turn
. She felt that the
world was waiting for her to step outside, yet some sense, previously unknown,
kept feeding warnings to her. Seen out of the window, the day gone by had been
piercingly bright, cloudless, like all Khanaphir days. But when she turned away
and closed her eyes, her mind embroidered the unseen sky with louring grey, a
towering thunderhead of storm.
Something is about to
happen!
The feeling made her head ache, made everyone seem suspicious in
the way they looked at her. In the corners of her eyes, those indecipherable
little carvings that marched their endless rounds in every room, along every
wall, seemed to jump and gibber. The scholarly pedantry of Berjek and Praeda
seemed rife with double meanings, hidden secrets. She clung to their presence,
though, for anything was better than being alone. Berjek was intent on his
studies and nothing more, therefore no good company, while Praeda had her own
worries, remaining quiet and thoughtful, as though something was eating at her
mind.

Where now?
There was one ‘where now’ left to her, but the
thought made her heart tremble. She had skulked in the shadows of this problem
all this time, and was not sure that she could take up a lance and strike to
the heart of it. To do so would, at the very least, destroy any standing she
retained as an ambassador.

Berjek
and Praeda reached some kind of impasse in their discussion, and she sensed
them turn towards her. She opened her eyes, to see that the sky beyond the
windows was already darkening. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘We are
in need of your services,’ Berjek said. ‘As an ambassador, they may listen to
you.’

‘What do
you want from them?’ Che asked blankly; their words had passed her by.

She saw
Praeda make an exasperated face. ‘Che, we need this code-book of theirs, the
one for their carvings,’ she said. ‘There is supposed to be a book containing a
translation – a meaning – for these symbols. Berjek and I agree that this is
more than idle decoration. There is information encrypted here, but we can’t
read it, so we need the book.’

‘It’s
one of those things where they clam up as soon as you mention it,’ Berjek said
glumly. ‘They just change the subject, ever so politely.’

‘Sacred,’
remarked Che, and they stared at her.

‘What a
peculiar notion,’ said Berjek at last.

‘It is a
very old word,’ Che said softly, ‘but it’s the right word.’ She saw him
bursting with questions but she held a hand up. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she warned. ‘I
don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. I cannot
explain it in any way that you would understand.’

Berjek
rolled his eyes and was about to say something very sharp, but then a drum
began sounding out in the garden, a simple, low beat. The three Collegiates
exchanged frowns.

‘Some
local custom …?’ Berjek suggested, and then a stringed instrument, high and
plaintive and intricate, had added its voice to whatever was going on. As one
they passed out onto the balcony to see.

Whatever
it was, it was happening right below them, where they would have the best view.
Khanaphir servants had staked out torches that blazed with a steady, rosy
light, outlining a rough circle on their side of the pond. Che saw some
movement in the Imperial embassy across the way, the Wasps emerging to watch in
equal puzzlement.

The two
musicians, still playing quietly, sat cross-legged outside the circle. Four
soldiers had stepped inside it: slender Mantis-kinden wearing chitin and hide
cuirasses and helms, and bearing spears. They knelt at four points, spears
pointing upwards and inwards, their razor tips describing a smaller space
within the larger.

‘Is this
a play?’ Berjek wondered.

‘Or an
execution?’ Che said darkly.

Another
figure came striding up towards the circle, and Praeda said, ‘Oh, hammer and
tongs, look at him,’ hand to her mouth, for it was Amnon. The torchlight picked
out the grim expression on his face. He wore only a kilt of white with a golden
belt, and the dancing red light picked out the lines of his musculature. In
each hand there was a sword, not the broad leaf-bladed things his soldiers
carried, but blades like curved razors, thin and wicked-looking and extending
longer than his arm. He went to the heart of the circle, within the threat of
the four spear-points, and Che saw him take a deep breath. He raised the
swords, one held forward, one underhand. Che glanced at Praeda and saw the
woman had a look of exasperation on her face, one of clear disapproval at
whatever the big man was going to do. The thought came to Che,
And yet she is still watching, to see what it is all about. If
her mind had matched that face she would be back inside already
.

The
music stopped.

Amnon
looked up, and Che knew he was seeking the face of Praeda Rakespear. His
expression was so bleak that she thought,
He’s going to
kill himself. This is some kind of Khanaphir suicide ritual
.

The drum
exploded into greater life, the strings rattling alongside it, and Amnon began
to dance.

Che had
never seen anything like it. Like a man possessed, the First Soldier had gone
mad. From that utter stillness he had become a leaping, spinning maniac and,
wherever he went, the swords were weaving about his body in a blur of killing
steel. He was in and out of the spearpoints, over and under them, whilst the
Mantids that held them kept absolutely still, without a tremor. The swords passed
everywhere, cut nothing. Amnon looked neither at the swords nor at the spears
nor at his feet. His eyes were always fixed upwards, seeking out Praeda
Rakespear.

It
should have been ridiculous. Without the music it
would
have been ridiculous, but the swift, insistent rhythm was working some magic
all of its own. Che felt something catch at her emotions, even though this
entire spectacle was for a purpose to which she was purely incidental.
He wants to reach out to her so much …
But that
great-framed man could not just bare his heart. Behind the armour of his office
and the worship of his troops, he was as human as them all. He was dancing to
display his vulnerability, even as he danced to show his skill.

Che
glanced over at Praeda; the woman’s face still showed nothing.
The Cold One, that’s what they called her
. It seemed
impossible that Amnon would not injure himself, or kill one of his soldiers,
but the music forced him on and on. The sweat glowed on him, and Che wondered
if there was an end to this, or whether he would go on until he took one wrong
step and drew blood.

The
music was still building, she realized.
There is more to
come
. Amnon’s feet moved in a rapid patter, yet every step in perfect
place. There was no margin for error in his dance, no chance to recover from
placing a foot wrong. The spears glinted ivory in the red light; the swords
seemed already stained with blood. Even the musicians seemed gripped by the
same frenzy that made Amnon leap and spin.

He gave
out a cry that must have come echoing back from the river, then sank down on
one knee within the fence of spears. The swords, still unstained, were raised
above his head, but the spearheads, all four, lay severed about him on the
ground. At last he was looking down. At last he had freed Praeda from the barb
of his attention.

Praeda
had one hand to her mouth and there was a colour to her cheeks that seemed
alien to her. Che’s first thought was that she had found the whole thing
embarrassing. Praeda would not meet anyone else’s eyes, as she hurried inside.

Below
them, with Praeda gone, Che saw Amnon finally allow himself to relax. His bare
back heaved for breath, and he lowered the swords to the ground.

What would I feel, if that had been for me?
Che wondered,
and felt, at the edge of her mind, just a flicker of that fierce attention. In
the face of the brief stab of envy she felt, despite herself, she wondered
whether her assessment of Praeda’s reaction had been correct.
She’s cold, but you’d have to be frozen through not to feel that
warmth
.

‘Remarkable
customs,’ Berjek said, returning inside himself, giving every impression of
being the muddled academic missing the point of everything he had just
witnessed. In his wake, Che was now left with only one person on the balcony
beside herself.

‘Help
me,’ Petri Coggen implored her, as she stood there in her nightshirt, hands
clutching each other before her. ‘Please, Che, before it’s too late.’

It had not occurred to her that the First Minister of Khanaphes would be
waiting for her. Of course, he made a great show of finishing up business
first. When she stepped into the great hall of the Scriptora, with its traitor
fountain playing its serenade to the Aptitude of its creators, she found him at
the far end, giving quick instructions to a clutch of clerks. Even as Che
approached him, though, the menials began to disappear, bowing backwards off
into oblivion, leaving Ethmet to turn and beam at her politely. She knew, then,
that he had been here for this reason only: to meet with her.

‘O
Beautiful Foreigner, O Ambassador,’ he said to her, ‘what favour may the city
of Khanaphes enact for you?’

‘I need
to speak with you,’ she said. She had resolved to be blunt, because she needed
answers both for herself and for Collegium.

‘Of
course. Nothing would be of more pleasure,’ he assured her. ‘Would it displease
you if I pass about my duties as we speak?’ If he had been a younger man, and
of another city, she might have accused him of mockery.
The
Khanaphir could revile you to your face, though, and you would never know it
for sure
.

‘We
would need privacy, I think,’ she said. He was already turning away, pottering
off into the next room, so she was forced to follow.

‘Ah,
well, there are only servants to hear us, and they know their duty is to keep
their ears close about them,’ Ethmet said absently.
He
plays the part of the avuncular old man so well
.

The room
he had passed into gave her a moment’s pause. It was a library, she guessed, or
perhaps just some grand office of government. The circular floor was picked out
in an intricate mosaic design devoid of meaning, and the walls were lined with
wooden racks, criss-crossing diagonal beams that reached up to the high windows
visible far above Che’s head. Steps on either side led to balconies for access
to the higher shelves and, when they entered, there were at least two score
clerks removing scrolls, filing them, or amending and updating them. Within a
minute of Ethmet’s entrance, and without any signal that Che could discern,
they had all carefully rolled up their work and departed from the room. Each
one’s manner suggested merely that they had been about to do so in any case,
and that Ethmet’s entry had not swayed them in the least. A moment later, as
the shuffling of sandals receded, Che and Ethmet were left alone in the echoing
room.