And, besides, she was seeking a different communion. She was trying to find Totho.
I know him so well, after all. We were friends for so long. If he is down here, and living still, then surely I can find him.
But she hunted and hunted, gaining transient glimpses of other groups of slaves – fleeing, dying or squatting in filth and misery as they waited for their end. Even if Che got her current charges out of this charnel world, they represented only a fraction. So many more would die; so many more were already dead.
But there was no sign of Totho, and so she turned her attention to that coiling blot at the heart of the world – where the Worm dwelt.
By now she was deep in dreams, her revelations progressively less reliable, more likely to be the product of her own wishes and needs. When she did find a momentary contact with a familiar personality – the callused edges of his innocence, his earnest striving, his bitterness towards the world – it was a fleeting thing, and she could not know for sure if she had found him after all.
More likely he was dead. More likely he was smothered beneath the cloud of the Worm’s influence, and she could not reach him at all. Or else his own stubborn Aptitude prevented her from touching him.
Or perhaps I just don’t know him as well as I should do.
Thirty-Six
The Red Watch man – he never revealed his name – entered the governor’s residence in Myna as though he owned it.
In truth, just getting here had been a struggle. Myna itself was in chaos, the streets fiercely contested between the Wasp garrison and the local forces. It’s as though they know what we’re about to do, Gannic thought. The reality of what they were planning – what his vaunted technical expertise would propagate – was something he was doing his best not to think about.
There were lines drawn now. The governor had been sent his orders, and the garrison forces had done their best to corral the bulk of the Mynans into a single district, pushing them up through the tiers of the city until they were crammed into its highest areas. By then, there were no intact flying machines left in native hands, and the Imperial Spearflights and Farsphex could drop incendiaries on the locals to their heart’s content. Except that orders forbad it.
In actuality, a great part of the city was not safe for either side. Insurgents were constantly breaking out and setting traps and ambushes for Wasp forces, or being caught and killed in turn. Keeping the Mynans bottled up was a constant struggle.
The great governor’s palace, which had once dominated the city for more than a decade, had been torn down by the ingrate locals after they had driven the Empire out during the last war, but they had yet to replace it with anything else. Their interim government had been keeping the Empire’s seat warm in a structure still only half complete when the Wasps returned, and that building had been methodically destroyed during the retaking of the city. Instead, the garrison had fortified its own district, turfing out all locals and barricading all the streets. In between those two districts of concrete loyalty, the Wasps had a fair run of the streets, but their control was piecemeal.
The airship, with its lethal cargo, had been shot at by ballistae when it arrived over the city – and Gannic was by no means sure that all those incoming bolts had been Mynan. It was a fearful chaos down there, and the thought of what might have happened, had some explosive cracked open the hull, did not bear thinking about. When at last they had the vessel anchored to the ground, he breathed a sigh of relief.
He had thought, without much hope, that he might be able to hand over responsibility to the local engineers. The Red Watch man kept close to him, though, leaving the airship under heavy guard and snapping at any of the garrison men who tried to get in his way. Gannic remembered the way the Rekef had always worked. Yes, the name had inspired fear, but its presence had been subtle – everywhere and nowhere: could be your superior officer or the man next to you on parade, or even your own slave. The Red Watch was nothing but a fist backed by the Empress’s writ. It was great power given to little men. Gannic, a little man himself, knew how that would feel. Oh, what I’d do if only I . . .
The Mynan governor was an old soldier with grey in his hair and a jagged scar on his face, seconded out from the army as a reward for long service, but given the poisoned chalice of this city because he was a warrior still.
‘So, what have you brought me?’ he demanded. He seemed less awed by the Red Watch than the rest were.
‘Orders, Colonel,’ the Red Watch man told him. ‘The Empress’s voice. May we speak in private?’
The colonel’s expression was wary, but a flick of his fingers sent his junior officers out of the room. ‘This Myna business, it’s absurd,’ he commented. ‘They’re fighting like madmen. The whole city’s up in arms, all of a sudden. I don’t have the forces to keep them bottled up. I’ve sent to the Szaren garrison for reinforcements. I sent to Capitas, too. Apparently you’re who they sent in response.’
‘It seems that way,’ the Red Watch man confirmed. ‘Other reinforcements will not be necessary. The Empress has decided to settle the Mynan question once and for all.’
Gannic had thought the colonel would take this as typical Capitas bombast, but the man looked thoughtful. ‘My men say you’ve a whole load of metal barrels on that boat of yours.’
‘Yes, Colonel.’
‘I was fighting near here in the last war, you know. Some bad pieces of business in this region. You hear all sorts. Some kind of madness-weapon in Tharn, they say. And then there was the Szaren garrison. What was it they called that stuff the Colonel-Auxillian had?’
The name made Gannic start guiltily, and the Mynan governor did not seem surprised, only disappointed. ‘So you’re here with orders for me to win the war that way, are you?’
‘No, Colonel. My orders are to relieve you of your position and have you return to Capitas.’
Gannic wasn’t sure whether he or the colonel was more startled by that statement.
‘Are you mad . . .?’ The governor – former governor – tailed off because the Red Watch man now had a hand directed towards him, palm outwards.
‘Effective immediately. Show him the orders, Gannic.’
Unwillingly dragged into the dispute, Gannic took the scroll from the man’s other hand and hurried over to the governor, making sure not to get between them.
The colonel pointedly ignored the threatening palm, breaking the seal on his orders and perusing them as calmly as he was able. ‘I see,’ he observed. ‘And Her Majesty’s commands will of course be obeyed.’ His eyes flicked up. ‘I shall depart for Capitas to clear this mess up myself. I note that, in my absence, you are acting governor. Congratulations.’ Gannic had never heard a more bitter word uttered. ‘One question,’ the colonel added. ‘Why?’
‘Because she knew you would not go through with it, in the end,’ the Red Watch man told him flatly. ‘Sometimes the Empire needs special servants to carry out special tasks.’
‘Is that what you are?’ The ex-governor’s tone was dripping with disgust.
‘This is insane. Why don’t they fight?’ Castre Gorenn complained.