But I wasn’t here. I was upstairs with my glass, staring out at the gates. Not knowing we had been betrayed. Not knowing that day would hammer me into shape like a smith. What would I have become, if I had not been there? What would the world have become?
A worse place, I hope. But, at this point, he realized that he had no guarantees. They named me War Master, an old Moth title from the Bad Old Days. Surely I only ever wanted to prevent war? But his mind was loose on its bearings, and he could not swear to that, after all.
Stenwold went up the stairs to where it had all started.
He was waiting there, sitting at one of the tables just as when their little band of fools had made their plans. Dead fools now, all of them, Stenwold’s oldest friends, and none older than this one.
‘Hello, Tisamon,’ he breathed.
The Mantis was looking him over, a curiously unreadable expression on his face that at last resolved into the smallest of smiles.
‘Hello, Sten.’
Stenwold went to take a seat across from him, noting how dark it was, already, out of the windows.
‘You’re looking well,’ he ventured awkwardly. It was true and it was not true. Here was the young Tisamon, lean and deadly, but with the old Tisamon clearly visible beneath the skin: the lines of care, of soured hope and self-recrimination all traceable there like veins. And beneath even those was the shadow of the skull, telling of the death that had claimed this man and not let go.
‘It’s good to see you again,’ the Mantis said, and Stenwold was startled to see tears glint in his eyes. ‘It’s been so long, but I knew you’d be here, eventually.’
‘Here . . .?’ Stenwold glanced around, still trying to come to terms with what he was seeing. The room seemed to blur as his memories fought to impose themselves on it. Surely there was a Wasp army out beyond the gates, about to attack. Or was this occupied Myna where Kymene’s resistance was on the streets? Or just a bombed ruin again?
‘I don’t understand,’ he admitted at last, sounding lost even to himself. ‘Why am I here?’
‘Sten,’ Tisamon said softly. ‘It’s always been Myna for you, surely you can see that? Ever since that first time, when you saw the Wasps capture it. Myna made you. For you, it’s always been about Myna. Where else would you go, when . . .’
When . . . ‘There is no when,’ Stenwold declared, feeling an unnameable emotion begin to rise inside of him. Is it grief, if the person you’re mourning is yourself? ‘There’s life, and there’s death. There is no . . . this.’
Tisamon’s smile grew fond. ‘Then perhaps this is just you, in the end . . . in your mind. Does that make it any less true for you?’
‘I . . .’ The Apt part of Stenwold told him he should argue, but it seemed like a lone voice at the Assembly. ‘You died, Tisamon.’
The Mantis nodded. ‘I know.’
‘A long time ago, now. They say you killed the Emperor.’
‘I didn’t, but it pleases me that they say so.’ A rare smile appeared, cut right from Stenwold’s happier days.
‘So why are you here? Myna was never anything special to you.’
Tisamon was looking at him, still smiling, his eyes bright with old pain. ‘Sten,’ he said, ‘you didn’t think I’d go on without you, did you?’
For a long time, Stenwold just sat there, looking at his friend, then he looked down at his hands, which had built and destroyed so much, and at the last he smiled back.
‘I suppose not,’ he conceded, and pushed himself heavily to his feet. ‘Shall we?’
They descended the stairs together and stepped out into the night-silent street. Up there, further up the layered tiers of the city, there was an airfield. Where else would they be heading, but somewhere that promised an infinity of destinations?
Stenwold clapped Tisamon on the shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He felt twenty years younger.
Above, the stars were coming out.
This time, when the Worm ebbed away again, the crippling pain did not go. It took a step back, like a duellist itself, assessing her condition and ready for its next strike, but when Tynisa lurched to her feet and fended off Tisamon’s immediate strike, she still felt that stabbing hurt deep within her.
Her own time, as opposed to everyone’s collective time, was running out.
She feigned a retreat and twisted inside his guard, gripping the lip of his helm with her off hand and trying to wrench it free, to expose some part of him that she could pierce, to look upon her father’s face. He went with the motion, dragging her into the spines of his arm, which scored red lines across her body. Then his claw was driving back towards her, crooked underhand like a dagger.
She blocked the thrust, forearm to barbed forearm, then grappled at his wrist, getting a hold for long enough that she could drop back on her good leg, turning his attack into an over-extension, smashing him across the helm with her knuckle-guard twice, back and forth, then driving the point of her pommel in between shoulder and neck. She felt the fine mail there give slightly, and for a moment Tisamon was down on one knee, but then he had driven his arm-spines into her side with all the force he could muster, knocking her over and following up instantly, so that she had to roll over the jagged ground to avoid his first thrust, then backwards into his legs to dodge the second. He stumbled over her, and she was slithering out from under him immediately, jabbing back at him and feeling her sword’s tip scrape metal yet again.
She forced herself to her feet – her sword dragging her up more than anything, and saw him stalking her sidelong, assessing her condition just like the pain itself was doing, clearly planning his next attack.
She realized that she was between him and Seda.
He must have grasped it at the same time, breaking from his carefully poised stance in an almost awkward rush for her, but she had already passed out of his reach, just one halting step ahead of him, leading with her blade towards the Empress.
Then the pain returned and she crashed down with a wrenching cry, one hand to her hip to find that old wound torn open again, the blood soaking into her leggings. She flailed at Seda, but the Empress was just out of reach, staring at her in fear and rage, hand out and trembling.
Tynisa lurched towards her, just as the crackling bolt of gold fire scorched down her leg. The rapier – leaden in her grip now that the Weaponsmaster’s bond had been severed – lanced the Empress’s calf, toppling her backwards. This time, Seda’s scream was pure pain.
Then Tynisa’s agony made its measured retreat once more – though barely far at all now – and she rolled onto her back bringing her blade up, trusting that it would seek out Tisamon’s attack.
He stood directly over her, right arm drawn back to administer the blow, left hand extended forwards to slap her blade aside. But his head was cocked as though he was listening.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Seda demanded. ‘Kill her! I command it!’ Again she thrust her arm out towards Tynisa, fighting furiously against all Che’s efforts to stop her.
Tynisa inched out from under Tisamon’s shadow, waiting for him to move, wondering if she now even had the strength to make a strike at him that would have any chance of piercing his guard and his armour.
Then he stepped back, in a single neat little motion, and lowered his blade. It was a movement almost unbearably familiar to her from all those practice bouts. Tisamon had concluded his lesson.