Scyla herself had made no appearance, or at least not that he could tell. Her proxy here was doing a fair enough job of managing the bidding, encouraging, jibing, pushing up the price, whilst she presumably waited around in the shadows somewhere, hiding behind someone else’s face.
Bidding on the mouldering documents was brisk, and Thalric wondered what truths they might contain, what secrets of the days when the artificer’s craft was just dragging itself out of the morass of mysticism. No doubt it would moulder afresh in the private collection of one of these plutarchs here. He saw a pair of Beetle-kinden bidding against each other stolidly, with single fingers lifted to advise the auctioneer, and a Wasp-kinden woman as well, elegant and grey, her eyes sharp. He wondered whether she was somehow wealthy in her own right, or whether she was merely acting as factor for another.
Probably the documents, however old they looked, were faked. That seemed more than likely, for few here had any idea just how easily Scyla could make herself disappear, so that there would be no direct repercussions for her.
The rain was starting up: the venue had a waxed canvas extended over the auctioneer’s podium to keep his wares dry, but the buyers themselves sat on benches out on the open deck. Thalric guessed that this temporary raft might not have supported the weight of a roof and, anyway, the Skaters were not known for the solidity of their architecture.
He had not noticed which, but one of the Beetles had become the lucky owner of the documents, so the Fly-kinden, dressed as elaborately as any servant to Spider-kinden princesses, now trotted out the next lot: an enamelled silver statue in the Commonweal style, beautiful in execution and pornographic in subject matter, with the acrobatic couple’s wings delicately picked out in gold lace.
Thalric passed his eyes over the audience for the hundredth time. There was no possibility of finding Scyla in it. He had thought that their association would have allowed him to spot… just something, some gesture, some stance, but she was as anonymous as a corpse on a battlefield, lost amongst the flesh of others. There were plenty of others, too, for nobody had been so trusting as to come here alone. Thalric’s little band had therefore attracted no comment.
The Fly continued his banter, up on his stage, the treasures of the world passing through his hands. Some of the bidders left, their one goal attained or thwarted. Most were staying on. There was a feeling – Thalric caught the scent of it – of anticipation, as if they had only been marking time for something greater.
‘My final lot, then,’ announced the Fly-kinden, and Thalric went cold within himself. It was not the proprietary tone, which the Fly had been using throughout, or the fact that the small wooden box had not been presented by a servant but plucked straight from a pocket. Rather it was something in the tilt of the head, that way of standing, that was familiar to Thalric. He was trained to recognize such things, to see through disguises.
But this? It was impossible, and yet he knew it for sure. His instincts were certain, absolute. He had seen her before in the shape of a Beetle, in the shape of a Wasp-kinden officer, in the shape of a Mynan woman. She had even infiltrated Stenwold’s people in the form of one of his own students, and yet Maker had not known.
He leant back so that he could speak to the others without being overheard. They were all on edge from the moment the Shadow Box had been displayed.
‘This curiously carved casket,’ the Fly-kinden was saying, ‘of Mantis-kinden workmanship, very delicately done, and dating to around the time of the Pathic revolution, or very shortly thereafter, this item is believed to be of great ritual significance to the Inapt people of that period.’
‘It’s her,’ hissed Thalric. ‘The Fly is her, I swear.’
‘Her or not,’ Tisamon said, ‘it is time.’ His claw was already on his arm, without his having had any chance to buckle it on. It was a night of wild ideas and Thalric’s veins sang magic to him. Tonight he could believe in anything.
He turned back to the Fly – to Scyla – who was concluding her patter. They were all unarmed here aside from the Mantis, but he was a Wasp. He sensed Tisamon behind him, about to make his lunge.
Let the Mantis take the brunt, he decided, waiting for the man’s move.
It came, but not from Tisamon.
The Wasp-kinden woman, whose identity Thalric never discovered, suddenly shouted out a command and half a dozen men from various points across the room suddenly lurched forward. They had appeared to be there as independent buyers or their retinues, but abruptly they were as one and drawing knives, rushing for the stage.
Someone else wants to receive the prize without the price.
Thalric did not need to make a signal. Tisamon was already past him, knocking over a Beetle-kinden collector in his rush forward. His claw swept in and he caught the nearest knifeman in the back, without even slowing, vaulting the stricken man’s body. Another knife-wielder was wrestling with some other guard in the crowd, who had misinterpreted the move as an attack on his master. Three had gained the edge of the podium but one had already fallen, stabbed by one of Scyla’s hired locals.
The Fly-kinden, Scyla in poise but utterly otherwise in looks, surged forward as the first man, a Beetle-kinden, tried to jump on to the platform. Thalric only saw her hand go in, but there was a knife in it when it withdrew, and the man fell backwards. Then the Fly spotted Tisamon.
Thalric saw, actually saw, the shape of her face flicker, and he wondered whether she recognized who Tisamon was, or whether Spiders, for all their disdain, still had nightmares about the avenging Mantis warrior who might come for them one day.
Two of her Skaters tried to get in Tisamon’s way, with shortswords in hand and wearing cuirasses of metal scales, but he had killed the both of them swifter than Thalric could follow him. A third was struck down by Gaved’s sting as it lanced over the heads of the crowd, which was becoming more chaotic by the moment. The wiser collectors were making their exits, and others were trying to send their men against the stage itself, or against those who were trying to attack it. With hands and elbows, Tynisa was fighting her way through the crowd to take the box as soon as Scyla was brought down. Thalric used his wings to wrench him up from the throng, feeling a stab of pain for his efforts, but he needed a clear shot.
Abruptly the air itself was busy. He saw a dozen Wasp soldiers appear from over the lake, their crackling sting bolts already lancing the crowd. Some of these newcomers landed close to Tisamon on the stage, but he killed them even as they touched down and before they realized their error. Tynisa dispatched another one, lancing a borrowed knife between the armour plates covering the man’s back. Thalric felt his sting burning the palm of his hand in anticipation, but he held it back.
They are still my people, he thought, and besides he had other prey tonight.
Scyla had backed away, her outline shimmering slightly, until the wall that backed the auction house platform was at her shoulderblades. Trapped, thought Thalric, trapped by her own devices. A true Fly-kinden would not have left herself so helpless.
He watched Tisamon lunge for her. And she flew. Thalric almost fell out of the air himself, because she was most definitely Scyla, her Spider face shifting in and out amongst those Fly-kinden features, but she had stolen the Fly wings along with the face, darted over the startled Tisamon’s head and out into the night.
Thalric let out a shout of anger, at his own assumptions as much as at her escape, and Scyla turned to look round, despite herself. Their eyes met briefly with a shock of recognition.