The Scarab Path (53 page)

Her head
was being drawn down: the dream wanted her to see. She teetered on the edge of
waking, the facade of her dream cracking.
Don’t want to … I
don’t want to …
Because there was something down there, and it was
rising up.

She woke
with a sharp start, as though she had been slapped. For a moment the dream
still clung to her, its sights, sounds, the very texture of the air confusing
her.
Where am I?

She
froze. The air around her was chill and damp, kissed by the Jamail. She was
high up, and the cloud-strung moon’s light settled on little, but it settled on
the pale stone of the statues looming across from her. They had always looked
outwards before, but now one was turned towards her – and it was smiling
slightly as if in amusement at her folly.

She
screamed, a short and ugly sound, as she felt the sudden rush of air from the
pit at her very feet –
as if something was rising from the
depths
.

She
stumbled backwards, abruptly without sure footing, tripping back towards the
descending steps of the pyramid. She reached out for a support, grasped the arm
of one of the statues, expecting cold stone. What she touched was slick and
slippery, not stone but flesh.

She
screamed again and let go.

The Voice of the Masters

On this day,
the one hundred and seventy-fifth day of the seven hundred and forty-second
year from the founding of the Bounteous City, were the tallies made of all
peoples who dwell under the hand of the Masters, happy are we to stand in their
shadow …

Also in this
year the harvest was of unexpected richness, so that the stores of the city
were increased by three parts in one hundred for the coming years. The word of
the Masters has cautioned that our storehouses must remain full, for there are
lean years foreseen in the east …

Also in this
year …

‘Bella Cheerwell?’

The
words – her own name – startled her from her reverie. Che blinked, stared at
the wall she was crouching before. For a moment the hieroglyphs only marched
their incomprehensible procession before her eyes. Then they swam and twisted,
as though suddenly viewed through tears. Comprehension came as naturally as
breathing, and she saw:
Also in this year did the First
Soldier of Khanaphes take to the West River Plains so as to turn aside the
advances of the Many of Nem …

But what
did that remind her of …?

‘Che!
What’s wrong with you?’

It was
an irritation that would not go away. She shook her head and looked up to see a
figure standing beside her. Beside her, not over her, though she knelt, for it
was Flykinden: a man in a traveller’s garb and cloak, with a little snarl of
beard at his chin, in the Spider manner. His face seemed familiar to her …

A tenday
of personal history slipped, like a great rock mass long hanging, and descended
on her without mercy, leaving no survivors. Che gasped, flinched back from
Trallo so hard that she bounced her head against the wall she had just been
studying.
Khanaphes – the Fir eaters – the hunt – Thalric –
Totho – the Empire – war!
It was all so much to fit in place that she
nearly choked on it.

‘Trallo—?’
She stared at the Fly wildly, trying to work out precisely where they were.
Khanaphes, yes, but she did not recognize this district. Beyond the
worried-looking Fly, the shaven-headed people were going about their business
in a narrow street, without even a glance for the mad foreign woman. They
continued herding their goats and sheep and aphids, carrying jars of water or
oil, or baskets of grain.

‘Che,’
said Trallo patiently, trying to capture her attention. ‘I have been looking
for you for two days.’ He let that sink in before adding, out of sheer
exasperation, ‘And do you know how difficult it is to stay out of
my
sight for two days? People have been worried sick. All
sorts of things have been going wrong. You’re supposed to be an ambassador
and—’

‘And
whose money paid for all this searching? Which of all your masters?’ she
snapped back at him, before she could stop herself. She grimaced instantly.
‘Trallo, I’m sorry …’

‘No,
that was a fair shot,’ he said, not seeming at all hurt or even repentant. ‘My
own house got a little untidy towards the end, but then I wasn’t expecting open
war between the Iron Glove and your Wasp fellow.’ His expression soured. ‘I
wasn’t expecting open war, full stop. Che, I won’t pretend that your halfbreed
friend hasn’t wanted me to track you down, but it’s your own people who are
going mad right now. After all that’s happened, they want to get straight out
of town – and, to be frank, so do I.’

‘All
that’s happened?’
Ah yes
. ‘So … the rumour …’

‘The
Scorpions are coming, and they’re going to be here, well, really soon. Really,
really
soon. Whether they’ve had all the Imperial help
that the Glove have been claiming, that’s unproven for now, but they’re coming
sure as death and taxes. The Khanaphir are putting their army together as
though the point of the whole exercise was just to give them the chance to hold
parades. You can’t move through most of the streets of this city for soldiers
marching about and crowds waving at them.’

Che
stood up, realizing as she did so that her robe was filthy, ingrained with dirt
and dust.
How long have I …?
‘I have been
researching,’ she explained uncertainly.

‘Surely
you have,’ Trallo replied. ‘Now let’s just …’

‘You
don’t understand. I have been reading the histories of Khanaphes – the true
histories.’ She waved towards the wall with all its bewildering array of
sigils. ‘These old walls, they’re the ones that matter. It’s all there in plain
view if you can only read it.’

Trallo
was staring at her as one stares at the suddenly mad. ‘Surely,’ he said again.
‘You’re a credit to the College. Now, how about you come on back to the
embassy?’

‘Who
were the Masters of Khanaphes, Trallo?’ she asked him abruptly.

‘You
want my call? There never were any,’ he replied in a harsh whisper, with a
suspicious look at the natives passing behind him. ‘Now let’s—’

‘But
there were,’ she said simply. What knowledge she had deciphered, during those
missing, dream-lost days, was filtering back. ‘They write about them all the
time, their commands, their wishes, their guidance.’

‘Sure,
sure – and all of it through the Ministers, I’ll bet. Now—’

‘They
speak of them walking through the city, Trallo.’

The Fly
took a deep breath. ‘Now listen, Bella Cheerwell, things have gone all to the
pits since you disappeared, and we’ve a good way to drop yet. Can we
not
just stand here talking about something that’s so long
ago it matters less to me than a midge’s fart, and perhaps just come back to
the embassy where you’re supposed to be, perhaps, maybe?’

‘It
matters, Trallo,’ she told him firmly. ‘It’s more important than anything.’
How did I manage to lose two days?
she was asking herself,
horrified, but something of that calm, that supernatural, overwhelming
obsession, still clung to her.
It tastes like Fir
,
she thought.
But I do not actually need the drug
.
She had not even needed to memorize the alphabet in that book that the
Khanaphir stonemasons now copied from in mindless rote. Simply being exposed to
it had operated some change within her.
The magic of
ancient Khanaphes
, and then the inevitable thought:
The
voice of the Masters calling to me from five hundred years ago
. She
still did not know who they had been, those lost Masters, but it was as though,
across all the intervening years, they wanted her to find out.

It was their voice that led me away, to come here …

‘Trallo,
I can’t come with you—’ she started, but his face took on an ugly cast.

‘Petri’s
dead, Che.’

She
stared at him, wordless.

‘Is that
immediate enough for you, Bella Cheerwell? Has that got through to you?’

‘Dead?’

‘They
found her on the steps of that pyramid in front of the Scriptora – I saw her
body, before the locals took possession of it. Broken neck. She’d fallen
backwards off it. But I saw her face.’ He shook his head, unable to properly
describe it.

Petri’s dead?
Petri Coggen’s babbling tirades about this
city being out to get her, her delusions, her fears, her pleas to be taken out
of Khanaphes.
And she confided in me, and I did nothing
.
It was like cold water washing the dust away from her. The last ebbing of the
trance was falling from her. ‘Poor woman,’ she said, hollowly. ‘Poor, poor
woman.’ When she met Trallo’s gaze again, her eyes were steady. ‘Let’s head for
the embassy. We can talk on the way.’

As they
approached the side arch leading through to the Place of Foreigners, her
thoughts turned inevitably to the maze of diplomacy she saw awaiting her.
And what am I going to do with Thalric now?
‘What’s the
Imperial reaction been, Trallo?’

‘Blatant
guilt,’ he said, from her elbow. She halted, frowning down at him,

‘Explain.’

‘They’ve
gone, Bella Cheerwell. They’ve upped and left. If they’re still even in the
city, they’re keeping their heads down.’

‘All of
them?’

‘Every
single stripy one of them.’

The news
seemed oddly leaden. Trallo was right: it indicated guilt, surely, to leave so
suddenly and secretly, once the news was announced.
Have
they gone to join their fellows amongst the Scorpions?
And then:
So I will not talk this over with Thalric, then. I suppose he has
made his decision, once again
. It seemed incredible that one man had
been given so many choices in life, and made them all so differently.

‘What’s
the feeling among the others?’ she asked.

‘Manny
wants out of Khanaphes yesterday. Our great warrior has decided that war isn’t
for him, after all,’ Trallo said drily. ‘They raised the chain on the river,
though – that big old gate your lot were so interested in? Worked like it was
made only last tenday in Solarno. Old Ethmet has said they’ll let you out, when
you’re ready to go. He’s very apologetic. And distracted, too, what with
suddenly having a war to run.’

‘What
about Berjek and Praeda?’

‘Berjek
is being patient, but I get the impression he’s about ready to pack his bags as
well. As for Bella Rakespear …’ Trallo grimaced. ‘Well, that there’s gotten
complicated.’

They
were at the door of the embassy, as Che gave Trallo a sidelong look. ‘Meaning
him?
’

‘He does
appear to have got to her somehow,’ Trallo murmured. ‘It was all that dancing
he did, I reckon.’

Che
tried to envisage them: cool, detached Praeda Rakespear with the giant, vital
Amnon. They seemed utterly opposite.
Then again, at least
they’re of the same kinden. I’m no one to judge
.

‘So what
does she want to do?’ she asked the Fly.

‘Bella
Che, I don’t think she knows herself. We were all hoping you could talk her
into making a decision.’

The city of Khanaphes resounded to the tread of marching feet.

From
atop the wall it was a spectacle, but Totho found that he could no longer
appreciate mere spectacle. The regiments of Khanaphir soldiers were still
leaving the city, each parading in mighty armed pomp through the streets before
assembling in front of the west gates. Totho was no novice when it came to
armies, and his mind afforded plenty of comparisons.
In
fact I am probably the best-qualified person in the city to say to Amnon what
must be said
. Except for some of the fugitive Imperials, perhaps, and
they were unlikely to be handing out strategic advice.

It was
not a Lowlander army, that much was clear.
Correction: it
is not a Lowlander army such as has been seen these last three centuries
.
The troops were still arriving by barge from the tributary towns further
upriver, but the city itself had mustered a surprising number of soldiers. They
were not Ant-kinden here, where every citizen would take up a sword at a
moment’s unspoken notice, but the Ministers had been able to mobilize a lot of
the city’s population in the short time they had been given. That would be
Amnon’s first boast:
We are used to fighting off these
savages
.

The sands have finally begun to move in the glass, though
,
Totho thought.
What you are used to, friend Amnon, is what
was, not what is
. Time, that long-denied guest, was finally marching on
Khanaphes.

Amnon
leant on the parapet, looking down with a broad smile as his soldiers
assembled. He was dressed in his full armour, the scaled hauberk and the
crested helm.
He would be better served by what we tried to
give him
, Totho knew, but the Ministers had forbidden it, of course.
Totho watched another unit of neighbourhood militia leave the gates. The
Khanaphir army looked a strange amalgam to his eyes, unwieldy and awkward and
lacking in vital parts. The core was Amnon’s Royal Guard and some other heavy
infantry: scale-armoured shield-and-spearmen backed by armoured archers. They
were greatly outnumbered by the light militia, vast expanses of men and women
without armour, with only shields and spears or leaf-bladed swords, or archers
who could back up their bows with nothing but a dagger. Although they could
stand in neat enough rows, Totho doubted they had seen much of a battle before.
It is not an army, rather it is a levy. A levy of citizens
that the Khanaphir can ill afford to lose
.