And then it had struck him like a physical blow. It was his own face he was looking at. Not an identical copy, which would have caused comment, but it could have been some extra brother he did not know about and the voice was one he knew as well.
‘Scylis?’ he had said softly, and the Wasp officer nodded with a smile that was most un-Wasplike.
‘Well done, Major, although I did rather make it easy for you.’
Thalric remembered looking in vain for the edge of a mask, the sign of make-up. This was the first time he had clearly seen any face that Scylis had chosen to put up. There was no mask, nothing but that living face. It had sent a shiver of horror through him — horror at the unaccountable.
‘I really could have used you three days ago,’ he had said to disguise his shock. ‘You do pick your moments to turn up.’
‘And meanwhile your operation in Helleron is wondering if you’re still alive. I decided I was best suited to tracking you down. Travelling as a Wasp officer within the Empire has its benefits. I might even consider it as a retirement option.’
Thalric had carefully not asked where Scylis had obtained the armour he was wearing.
And then there had been the gift, for Scylis had not arrived empty handed. He had been in the city long enough to learn which way was up, politically. He had brought in a prisoner for interrogation.
The prisoner was behind him now, stretched out on the bench. Because of the shortness of time available, Scylis had consented to let Thalric watch him work. The procedure had chilled him, he who had himself interrogated countless prisoners for the army or the Rekef.
When Thalric asked questions, it was about troop movements, the identities of agents, supply lines and the plans of other spymasters. His methods utilized a trained artificer and the devices that hung above the workbench, folded like an insect’s limbs.
Because he was not Apt, Scylis worked by hand. Spiders almost never were, assuming he truly was a Spider-kinden at all. He worked like an artist and, amongst the questions regarding names and places, he simply sought the details of everyday life, preparing himself for the role he would be playing. His voice was soft and patient, almost sympathetic, but behind it Thalric had recognized the glee of a man rejoicing in the skill and the power he wielded. It had been a glee enhanced by the fact that Thalric was his audience, and Scylis could witness the effect on him that his ministrations were having.
At the end of it Thalric had given him his further orders and he had gladly accepted them. He had entered the palace as a Wasp officer, but by the time he was back in the city he would have another face entirely.
Behind Thalric, on the workbench, the body of Khenice waited for disposal.
At some point in the night Che sensed that she half-woke, some footfall beside her bringing her to the very brink of consciousness. Opening her eyes she saw something pale beside the rolled-up cloak that was her pillow and she identified it merely as a folded paper before passing back into troubled slumber. It seemed to her, some time later, that yet another crouched by her, but she turned over, resolutely determined not to be woken, dreaming only that whatever paper had been left beside her was now being opened and read.
And then she was being shaken, only gently but she snapped out of her dreams with one hand fumbling for her sword. The paper, had there ever been one, was gone.
‘What is it? Is it Thalric?’ she gasped, but then she recalled she was a prisoner no longer. They were in the shadow of the Darakyon, with the lights of Asta visible now to the south, and just last evening Salma had gone to follow the army to Tark with Skrill as his guide.
Her eyes finally obliged and the night grew pale for her — and there was Achaeos kneeling beside her, his hand on her shoulder.
‘What is it? Is it my watch now?’
‘Your sister is still on watch,’ he said, which, because they were plainly not sisters, oddly touched her.
She sat up, looking about. ‘What is it, then?’ Tynisa was indeed sitting alert on a hummock near the forest’s edge and, without her Art, Che would never have been able to see her.
‘I need to take you somewhere,’ Achaeos whispered.
She eyed him suspiciously. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I cannot say where it is, what it is, only that it is something that I need you to see.’
‘If I knew in advance, I wouldn’t go, is that it?’
‘It is.’ He said without shame. ‘Will you come with me?’
And in that was weighed the question: how far did she trust him? Was there some slaver or Wasp agent waiting there within the dark wood? What did she really know about this grey-skinned man with his strange beliefs and his unreadable eyes?
She rubbed her own eyes, stood up and threw her cloak over her shoulders against the night’s chill, then buckled on her baldric, the sword tapping against her leg like some familiar trained animal. She had been separated from it too long.
‘I will trust you,’ she decided, and he led her to the edge of the wood.
Tynisa watched them approach cautiously. ‘Che, you shouldn’t go with him if you don’t want to,’ she said.
‘It’s all right, I. . I want to.’
‘Well just shout if there’s any trouble.’ There seemed more to this warning than Achaeos taking liberties or even servants of the Empire lying in wait. Che frowned, but even as she opened her mouth to reply a shadow was looming beside her, making her squeak with fright.
‘Are you ready?’ asked Tisamon.
‘We are,’ Achaeos replied.
‘He’s coming too?’ Che asked, and the Moth nodded so very seriously.
‘We need him. We would not be safe without him. Not even I.’
‘Achaeos, what’s going on?’
‘I cannot tell you. Until you yourself have seen, you would not understand.’
Even to her enhanced vision, the Darakyon was dark. She wondered that Tisamon, padding ahead, could see anything, and she saw him keep one hand out ahead of him, brushing the bark of the old trees, as though he was making his way by touch combined with some other sense she had no concept of.
She decided that she was not fond of this forest, or forests in general — at least at night. It was filled with the sounds of small things, and not so small things, and at every step she made something, somewhere nearby, twitched. Achaeos’s hooded form was making its way resolutely ahead and being left behind would be even worse.
And then Tisamon had stopped and she saw his claw was on his hand, though she had not seen him don and buckle it.
‘I have returned,’ said Achaeos, and he announced it to the air and to the trees. ‘You know me, and your power marks me still.’
He had gone mad, that was clear enough, and she glanced worriedly at Tisamon. She saw him cock his head and it was a moment before she identified this as the reaction of someone listening.
‘I have brought her because I wanted her to see you,’ Achaeos continued and then, after a pause. ‘My reasons are my own.’
It seemed to her that a sudden breeze gusted through the trees, and shook the leaves a little.
‘I have no more favours, and besides,’ Achaeos said, ‘what could I offer, who am already bound?’
Che shook her head, reaching out to tap his shoulder, as if to demand the reason for this performance. The wind was becoming more insistent, gusting and then falling in irregular patterns. Unexpectedly, Tisamon’s hand encircled her wrist, drawing her hand away from the Moth’s shoulder.
‘Whatever you can ask of me, ask it,’ said Achaeos, but his voice trembled as he spoke.
And she heard. The rustle of the trees, the whisper of leaves, insects scraping in the night. A hundred natural sounds, but together they formed a voice. If she listened very carefully, they were a voice.
Heart and soul, blood and bone, mind and will, what would you give?