'Che-'
'You would have had me raped. You would have tortured me — you would — don't think I've forgotten.'
He had gone cold. The ice had finally cracked and he had forgotten to be ready for it. 'I won't deny it.'
'I didn't think you would. You've never been less than honest.' She shrugged. 'And Uncle Sten thinks there's even hope for the Vekken, so why not you? What are you asking for, Thalric?'
'A truce? Until things degenerate between our factions again. A truce between you and me.' He took that final step across the perilous ice. 'For old times' sake.'
She snorted with laughter, but he was now on firm ground. He grasped her hand when she offered it to him, though he saw the faint flinch, her memory of what Wasp hands could do.
'We are both a long way from home,' she conceded, draining the last dregs from the jar. As she stood up it took her a moment to get her balance. 'We … we run out of old friends, do we not? They die, or they leave.'
He knew what she was saying: both of them marooned here at the ends of the earth. With whom did they share a past, however bitter, but with each other? He knew she would never have admitted it without the drink, but it was said now, impossible to retract.
'A truce,' she said. 'I know you're no good servant of your Empire, Thalric.' He must have twitched because she said quickly, 'and I'm no better. I came here for my own selfish reasons, however misconceived. A truce until the others start fighting again. Why not?' She squeezed his hand briefly, then released it.
He turned to Osgan and kicked the man's foot, drawing a startled exclamation.
'What-?'
'If you're intending to sleep, at least sleep indoors rather than under the stars like a Roach-kinden,' Thalric reproached him, and half-hauled the man to his feet. He glanced at Che again, and she gave him a fragile smile, a lop-sided shrug.
'Until next time,' she said, and turned for her embassy.
Petri Coggen was wide awake the next day — more awake than Che felt, certainly. Without fatigue to loosen her lips, she was now close-mouthed about the things she had said previously. Instead she eyed her fellow Collegiates cagily. You all think I'm mad, was written plain on her face.
'We will talk later,' Che whispered to her. After all, her great confessions had been disclosed only to Che, who was frankly not ready for further details. Between the disappointment and the drink she was feeling the morning keenly.
'You've lived for a while amongst these Khanaphir,' Berjek remarked. They were sitting together at a magnificently carved table, eating a local breakfast of honey and seedcake. The airy wave of his hand took in the city beyond the window, but ignored the servants that glided past him. 'I confess to seeing here a great deal that has mystified me. Their culture is not at all like ours, and yet we are of the same kinden.'
Petri Coggen nodded gloomily. 'Yes, they are not like us,' she said.
'Technologically, in particular,' Praeda put in. 'Which I think we can take as a valid yardstick of any culture-'
'Oh, nonsense.' The objection of Berjek the historian to Praeda the artificer.
She ignored him. 'These Khanaphir have a marvellous architecture, it's true, and I'm told they have some achievements in basic water-powered or weight-and-lever devices, but … but when Che first saw this place, she even thought they might be Inapt, and I must admit I can see why.'
Oh you can't, Che thought, around her headache. Really, you can't.
'Do you know much of their history?' Praeda asked.
'They do not talk about their history, for the same reason fish don't talk of water,' Petri told them. 'They are swimming in history. So much of this city is ancient, and so much more simply copied from that.'
Manny seemed to be suffering worse than Che, and had been listlessly chewing the same mouthful of seedcake for twenty minutes. Now he swallowed forcibly, and said, 'Maybe they achieved Aptitude more recently than we did.'
The others looked at him quizzically.
'Yes, yes,' he said irritably, 'I am a Master of the Great College. I may not be as respected as either of you two, but I'm a cartographer. I study maps, and I know that sometimes there are maps that I can't read: maps made by the Inapt, who frankly have no concept of how to draw one. But sometimes there are maps that are … trying harder. Those of the Fly-kinden, for instance. Fly-kinden maps dating from a couple of centuries ago are illegible, but modern ones, most of them, are clear as day.'
'It's a possibility,' Berjek allowed. 'The transmigration of Aptitude over time is a … contentious issue, academically speaking. I'm not sure that's something I want to get into.'
'Corcoran said something …' Che blurted out. What was it the Iron Glove factor had said?
'Corcoran advised us to study the Estuarine Gate,' Praeda recalled. 'I think we should take him up on it. He told me where their consortium has its factora located. I'm sure he'd be happy for us to engage his services for the day.'
The bright sun provided no antidote to a harsh night. Che staggered like a blind woman half the distance to the Estuarine Gate, before her eyes and brain reluctantly reached a detente with the new day. Corcoran seemed in annoyingly jaunty form, more than happy to help his fellow foreigners. He had been in Khanaphes for a while, she gathered, but the locals would not let him forget that he did not belong. He was enjoying the novelty of some company.
'The thing is …' Corcoran began, running his hand along the intricately cut stone of the Estuarine Gate's nearside pillar. 'No — tell you what, you take a look at it there, then you tell me.' He beamed around at the academics. Che could not yet make up her mind about him. He had the demeanour of a mercenary, and wore the dark armour of the Iron Glove at all times, but he talked like a merchant, instantly familiar, endearingly irreverent. His Solarnese features looked infinitely honest and Che would not have bought a kitchen knife from him.
Berjek and Praeda both stepped forward to take a look. The great column that formed the eastern Estuarine Gate towered above them, incised at every level with those ubiquitous pictographs that Khanaphes had tattooed itself with. Che forced herself to examine them, aware that behind her Manny Gorget had drifted off to accost a sweetmeat seller, while Petri Coggen stood biting at her nails and flinching away from the many Khanaphir that bustled past.
In frustration, Berjek had dismissed the designs as merely decorative. Che's eyes gave him the lie. They caught on the orderly lines of carving, drawn into following them. On most of the buildings it was like seeing a madman's scrawl, always promising sense, delivering nothing. Here on these ancient stones …
She blinked. For a moment just then it had seemed as though she saw words, had heard voices almost. In that day… Honour to … So it was … She averted her eyes, her headache stabbing sharply behind the eyes, then forced herself to look again. It was as though the sense they conveyed was hovering like a fish just below the surface — distorted, deceptive, but nevertheless there.
'Corcoran, tell me,' she said, 'what are these cursed carvings they engrave on everything?'
'No idea.' He grinned briefly. 'Just part of the Khanaphir way, their traditions. When they build something in stone they have special craftsmen come and put these squiggles on them. It's just what they do.' He gave a half-shrug, clearly not so bothered. 'They say the carvers train especially from a great book of the designs that the Ministers have, that shows all the permitted pictures they can use. Good luck in seeing that, though. Our hosts don't make it easy to understand them.'
Che filed the information away. I will see that book if I have to steal it.
'I really don't know what I'm looking for,' Berjek admitted, backing away from the towering structure. 'Or do you mean the statues on the estuary side? We saw those coming in.'