‘We are under deadly threat!’ Achaeos said desperately. ‘And you cannot ignore that. Whatever the Enemy might do, whatever I might do, there is an Empire out there that cares nothing for a thousand years of history, that seeks only to write its own name in our dust! We have resisted the Forging City for a century, but if we stood alone against this Empire we would not have one more month to live in freedom!’
‘Enough, Achaeos,’ interrupted another Skryre, a woman who seemed perhaps the oldest of them all. Achaeos bared his teeth, but could not manage to speak as she walked carefully forward. The single sound in all that echoing chamber was the rap of her wooden staff on the stone floor.
‘We do not credit your words,’ she said simply, and a shudder went through Achaeos that chilled Che to witness it. ‘The world cannot change so swiftly, and these newcomers, these men of black and gold, are the enemies of our enemies and have so far shown us no harm. You are condemned, either exile or death, unless you would submit yourself to us.’
Achaeos seemed frozen, and Che could not understand what the woman meant. Submit, she urged him mentally. Exile or death, what could be worse?
The woman reached out a hand, claw-thin with age, and Achaeos shrank away from it. He seemed like a cornered beast without means of escape, broken.
‘Achaeos,’ she continued, and there was something kindly in her voice, some kind of sympathy. ‘We are not unjust, as you well know. We give you this chance to show us, with no masks or lies, the truth of your words. Or else we must wonder what you would hide from us, and the advocate’s judgment shall stand.’
This time, Che could not stay silent. ‘Let her!’ she hissed, and her voice rippled disapproval across the audience of Moths. ‘Let her do it, whatever it is!’
He cast her a look that was filled wholly with guilt. Not fear, but guilt.
She thought she understood, then, what it was that he could not show them. ‘Then let me,’ she said, and his look turned to horror, and almost every one of the Moths around them was again on his feet, so that a great wave of disapproval fell crashing over her.
But she endured, as her race always had. ‘Whatever you want. I’ll do it. I can show you exactly what the Wasp-kinden are like, better than Achaeos here, better than anyone.’
‘Heed not her words. She has no leave to speak here,’ said the advocate from behind.
And Che decided that she would actually strike the woman, had even taken two paces forward, when the Skryre, the old woman, spoke. ‘What is this prodigy?’
Around them, men and women were resuming their seats, aware that there was something here they had, in their animosity, passed over. Even the advocate looked uncertain.
‘Come here, Beetlechild,’ said the Skryre, and Che turned and approached her slowly. Her blank eyes were nested in wrinkles but their gaze was steady as stone. ‘You would submit, would you? Submit to what?’
‘Whatever you were going to do to him,’ Che said. ‘Your Art or your. . whatever it is you do.’
‘No Art, Beetlechild. Art alone cannot lay a mind bare. Do you understand me?’
‘I think I do.’ She stood before the woman, bracing herself, and only then did she realize that the old woman was no taller than she. A moment before she had seemed towering.
‘You cannot do this,’ one of the other Skryres said softly. ‘She is the Enemy.’
‘It is an abuse of our power,’ added another. ‘We will suffer for it.’
‘And yet. .’ A third, the skullcapped man who had spoken first, came forward. Abruptly his hand was on Che’s chin, dragging her head around to look at him. ‘What can she believe? What can she understand? There is something in her beyond her kind’s blindness. I feel no fear in her, or very little.’
That ‘very little’ felt like a great deal of fear to Che, but she stood, steadfast, and waited, and when they simply exchanged looks, she said, ‘Do it. Please, just do whatever you want, whatever you need.’
‘What are you, Beetlechild? What path do you walk?’ asked the old woman.
‘I am a scholar of the Great College,’ Che said with pride.
‘It has been known.’ The old woman nodded sagely. ‘Not within living memory, but it has been known for such a one to seek knowledge amongst us. To have an open mind. I will examine her. I will pay the cost for it, if cost there be. I do this of my own will.’
There were dissenting looks from some of the other Skryres, but they held their peace.
‘Think of nothing,’ said the old woman, and placed her cool, thin hand on Che’s forehead.
Think of nothing? came the instant riposte from Che’s thoughts. Nobody can think of nothing. It cannot be done. . And while she was distracting herself with such tautology the Moth woman entered her mind.
Che was not sure what she was expecting. Perhaps a cold force reaching into her brain, talons ripping there, digging for what they sought. She felt nothing, except. . except after a while it was as though there was a babble of voices at the very edge of her hearing, and all of these voices were her own. .
And she snapped back to the moment, for the Skryre had drawn her hand away and Che could not even tell how much time had passed. She swayed, abruptly dizzy, those blandly hostile faces swimming all around her. The hard floor of the chamber struck her knees a moment later. Then she was lying on her side, feeling the entire mountain of Tharn revolve gently with herself as the hub. She struggled to sit up, at least, casting about for sight of the Skryres.
The old woman stared bleakly at her, and for a moment Che thought she had failed whatever test had been set her.
‘You have been into the woods of the Darakyon,’ the Skryre announced. ‘And you have seen there what your people have not ever seen before. Achaeos has much to answer for in this.’
Che’s heart sank, and she looked helplessly across at him. His face was set expectantly.
‘You have seen the Empire of the Wasp-kinden, and you have seen that they devour everything that falls their way. They have no friends. They leave no place untouched. They believe only in conquest. That is what you believe, but what is a Beetlechild’s belief, to us?’
There was more to come. Che could tell from the tone of her voice.
‘But you have seen, and you believe.’
For a moment Che thought she meant the Wasps, but it was more than that. She felt a current of shock course through the watching audience. She could not understand what was meant, until. .
They mean their magic. Surely it cannot be that important that Achaeos has shown it to me. She assumed then that it had doomed them both.
Instead it had saved them.
‘Achaeos, you have not been true to your kinden, and we do not condone what you have done. However, you have not earned exile, not yet,’ said the Skryre. ‘Against our judgment and against our interests, you have found something worth studying. The accusations are stayed, for now.’
He sagged visibly in relief, and Che would, anywhere else, have gone to comfort him. She was still pinned by the gaze of the Skryre, though.
‘What of the Wasps?’ she asked.
‘You come late into this battle,’ the old woman told her. ‘They have already sent their emissaries to us. They have explained their plans, for the Hated Enemy. We have treated with them. They are a vile people, but they may have their uses.’
‘But-’ Che began helplessly.
‘But now you have spoken to us, and we must return to our counsels,’ said the Skryre. ‘We shall deliberate and chart our course, and consult the omens. And you shall meanwhile wait for our word.’
And the Skryres turned as one, and disappeared into the darkness whence they had come, and all about them, one by one, the Moths were lifting off, their wings flickering darkly, casting wild shadows from the lamps as they ascended, so that only the Mantis-kinden guards were left. Only then did Achaeos take hold of her sleeve and draw her away.