He rolled up the scrolls and stowed them in the hidden compartment of his desk, then left to meet the Emperor.
They had moved the slave to a better cell, one with tapestries and carpets, some Grasshopper carvings for ornament, and no natural light. Uctebri had complained at the brightness of the gaslamps, though, and now oil lanterns hung randomly from the ceiling about his chambers, making them look more squalid than ever.
Still, he came to greet them at the first call of his name and Maxin knew they had been feeding him well enough. This scrawny creature seemed to have a remarkable appetite: it was not clear precisely where so much blood could go.
When the prisoner had presented himself, Alvdan circled him cautiously. Maxin knew the difficulties here were ones of belief. What the wretched old Uctebri had proposed was impossible, quite impossible, as any rational mind well knew. The thing the old Mosquito promised, the golden, impossible dream of sorcerers and ancient kings, belonged in the forgotten folk tales of slaves. When Uctebri spoke of it, though, it was hard not to remember that his very race was supposed to be extinct, to be entirely mythical. While he rasped the words, with his quiet certainty, his strange insistence, it was possible for the rational mind to be tricked into believing, just for a moment, that the quackery was real.
And Maxin now had access to a great deal of information. There was no single stockpile of words in Capitas, no library or archive, but through the channels of the Rekef his hands could reach a long way through the dusty scrolls of all the conquered and subject peoples of the Empire.
The Commonweal conquests had brought a great deal of lore into his possession. Most of it was the simple superstition of savages, but he had become more specific in the questions he was asking. There were a lot of Rekef agents in the conquered Dragonfly principalities who must have wondered just why he was asking them to dig up so much old myth and history.
The Commonwealers were writers whose early histories were given in elaborate, credulous detail. Here he had found signs of the thing the Mosquito had spoken of. Not enough to be certain, but enough to know that there had been something, at some time, that the man’s boasts were based on.
‘You wish to examine our sister,’ Alvdan said.
The hooded head bobbed. ‘It is necessary, Your Imperial Majesty.’
‘We had understood,’ the Emperor said, ‘that she was suitable. We believed you had proclaimed her suitable.’ He was now suspicious. Maxin liked him to be suspicious. When Emperors were suspicious they came to the Rekef for their suspicions to be eased, and, here in Capitas, Maxin was the Rekef.
‘Eminently suitable, Your Imperial Majesty,’ the Mosquito said. ‘However, there is no room for error. I must begin my calculations. Even now is not too soon, and such things cannot be hurried.’
‘This is nonsense,’ Alvdan said scornfully. ‘We believe none of this. What you claim cannot be done.’ He stomped away, but Maxin had heard the doubt in his voice, and he knew the Mosquito had too.
‘I am at your disposal,’ Uctebri said quietly. ‘I am your prisoner, your slave — I shall do as you command. There is none who can offer you this but I. No one else, your great Majesty.’
‘Maxin, you cannot really believe this. It goes against all reason,’ the Emperor protested, though in his eyes Maxin saw not fear or contempt, but a hunger. If only it were true, those eyes said, what could we do? What could we not do?
‘I have learned that there are things in this world that cannot be dismissed so easily. In your grandfather’s father’s time, Majesty, our own people had their own strange beliefs. One of which was that we would one day unite and rule the world. Who then would have believed it?’
‘But this is different, Maxin.’
‘Only in the type of belief it requires, Majesty.’
‘So you wish to examine our sister?’ Alvdan said, coming back to face the Mosquito. ‘And that will discomfort her. It will upset her. Good. We are growing to appreciate this plan. But then you say you need more? You do not have here at your disposal all that you need.’
‘It is indeed so, great lord. I have not the power, within my own being, for a work so great as this.’
‘So your charlatanry needs fuel to make it go, does it?’
‘I do not recognize such terms, great one,’ Uctebri said, with unctuous humility, ‘but I am sure you are correct.’
‘Your magic box — that is what you need us to retrieve for you?’ the Emperor added derisively. ‘If it were so effective, would it be so easy to locate — or even possible to take?’
Uctebri gave a strange whistling sigh and pulled his enveloping hood halfway back to scratch at his head. His red eyes flicked from Alvdan to the general. ‘Ruins and ash, Your Imperial Majesty, are all that remains of my people’s power, but those who wrought our downfall are now little better. The old days are gone, and shall not come again. Those that were once enthroned on high are cast down, and that which was venerated is spurned in the dust.’ His slender fingers intertwined. ‘This thing that lords and Skryres and princes would have fought for, when its value was known, is now a curiosity in the hands of the ignorant: ignorant men who profess knowledge, and yet know nothing of what they possess. But it has power yet — power that I can use for your benefit, worshipful Majesty.’
‘And if that power is used to our detriment, you know that we shall drain from you each drop of blood that you have fed on, creature,’ Alvdan told him. ‘Succeed and you shall find yourself most honoured amongst our slaves, but do not dream of betrayal.’
‘I am your prisoner. your slave,’ the Mosquito repeated, ‘and you may destroy me with a word, now or later, or when my tasks are done. I am most dependent on your good will, mighty one. When I have proved myself by this great service, you shall think kindly of me, I hope, and know that I can do yet more.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alvdan said doubtfully. ‘I have sent the orders, and they should arrive at the city of Helleron even now. Do you know Helleron? We have no free agents nearer your toy, but Helleron has its store of clever folk who do our bidding. The order has gone out to them. If this Box of the Shadow exists, and is where you say it is, they shall capture it for us.’
They brought the lady Seda in within two bells, as Capitas told time, dragged without warning from her own more sumptuous prison. She tried to fight free when she saw the emaciated, robed figure awaiting her, but the guard forced her in without difficulty, bound her to a chair easily, and now stood behind her, always a shadow in the edge of her vision. The Mosquito-kinden squinted at her, long fingers touching at one another, then parting.
‘Light and darkness,’ said Uctebri the Sarcad. He moved about the room almost hesitantly. ‘That is what life is about: all existence strung between those two poles. Or that is the way that we all used to see it.’ Eventually he made his mind up. ‘Shutter the lanterns,’ he said, and the guard looked at him curiously.
‘Sir?’ Uctebri was a slave still, with no rank as yet, but he was a man who had spoken to the Emperor and so the guard felt it wise to address him thus.
‘I cannot do it,’ the Mosquito said irritably. ‘Draw the shutters almost all the way. It is too bright in here for what I plan. I trust this will not discomfort you overmuch, Your Highness.’
It was already gloomy in there and, from her vantage point, Seda could see Uctebri as a dark-robed shape that grew less and less distinct as the guard tugged on the cords that controlled the lamps’ shutters.