'All that's happened?' Ah yes. 'So … the rumour …'
'The Scorpions are coming, and they're going to be here, well, really soon. Really, really soon. Whether they've had all the Imperial help that the Glove have been claiming, that's unproven for now, but they're coming sure as death and taxes. The Khanaphir are putting their army together as though the point of the whole exercise was just to give them the chance to hold parades. You can't move through most of the streets of this city for soldiers marching about and crowds waving at them.'
Che stood up, realizing as she did so that her robe was filthy, ingrained with dirt and dust. How long have I …? 'I have been researching,' she explained uncertainly.
'Surely you have,' Trallo replied. 'Now let's just …'
'You don't understand. I have been reading the histories of Khanaphes — the true histories.' She waved towards the wall with all its bewildering array of sigils. 'These old walls, they're the ones that matter. It's all there in plain view if you can only read it.'
Trallo was staring at her as one stares at the suddenly mad. 'Surely,' he said again. 'You're a credit to the College. Now, how about you come on back to the embassy?'
'Who were the Masters of Khanaphes, Trallo?' she asked him abruptly.
'You want my call? There never were any,' he replied in a harsh whisper, with a suspicious look at the natives passing behind him. 'Now let's-'
'But there were,' she said simply. What knowledge she had deciphered, during those missing, dream-lost days, was filtering back. 'They write about them all the time, their commands, their wishes, their guidance.'
'Sure, sure — and all of it through the Ministers, I'll bet. Now-'
'They speak of them walking through the city, Trallo.'
The Fly took a deep breath. 'Now listen, Bella Cheerwell, things have gone all to the pits since you disappeared, and we've a good way to drop yet. Can we not just stand here talking about something that's so long ago it matters less to me than a midge's fart, and perhaps just come back to the embassy where you're supposed to be, perhaps, maybe?'
'It matters, Trallo,' she told him firmly. 'It's more important than anything.' How did I manage to lose two days? she was asking herself, horrified, but something of that calm, that supernatural, overwhelming obsession, still clung to her. It tastes like Fir, she thought. But I do not actually need the drug. She had not even needed to memorize the alphabet in that book that the Khanaphir stonemasons now copied from in mindless rote. Simply being exposed to it had operated some change within her. The magic of ancient Khanaphes, and then the inevitable thought: The voice of the Masters calling to me from five hundred years ago. She still did not know who they had been, those lost Masters, but it was as though, across all the intervening years, they wanted her to find out.
It was their voice that led me away, to come here …
'Trallo, I can't come with you-' she started, but his face took on an ugly cast.
'Petri's dead, Che.'
She stared at him, wordless.
'Is that immediate enough for you, Bella Cheerwell? Has that got through to you?'
'Dead?'
'They found her on the steps of that pyramid in front of the Scriptora — I saw her body, before the locals took possession of it. Broken neck. She'd fallen backwards off it. But I saw her face.' He shook his head, unable to properly describe it.
Petri's dead? Petri Coggen's babbling tirades about this city being out to get her, her delusions, her fears, her pleas to be taken out of Khanaphes. And she confided in me, and I did nothing. It was like cold water washing the dust away from her. The last ebbing of the trance was falling from her. 'Poor woman,' she said, hollowly. 'Poor, poor woman.' When she met Trallo's gaze again, her eyes were steady. 'Let's head for the embassy. We can talk on the way.'
As they approached the side arch leading through to the Place of Foreigners, her thoughts turned inevitably to the maze of diplomacy she saw awaiting her. And what am I going to do with Thalric now? 'What's the Imperial reaction been, Trallo?'
'Blatant guilt,' he said, from her elbow. She halted, frowning down at him,
'Explain.'
'They've gone, Bella Cheerwell. They've upped and left. If they're still even in the city, they're keeping their heads down.'
'All of them?'
'Every single stripy one of them.'
The news seemed oddly leaden. Trallo was right: it indicated guilt, surely, to leave so suddenly and secretly, once the news was announced. Have they gone to join their fellows amongst the Scorpions? And then: So I will not talk this over with Thalric, then. I suppose he has made his decision, once again. It seemed incredible that one man had been given so many choices in life, and made them all so differently.
'What's the feeling among the others?' she asked.
'Manny wants out of Khanaphes yesterday. Our great warrior has decided that war isn't for him, after all,' Trallo said drily. 'They raised the chain on the river, though — that big old gate your lot were so interested in? Worked like it was made only last tenday in Solarno. Old Ethmet has said they'll let you out, when you're ready to go. He's very apologetic. And distracted, too, what with suddenly having a war to run.'
'What about Berjek and Praeda?'
'Berjek is being patient, but I get the impression he's about ready to pack his bags as well. As for Bella Rakespear …' Trallo grimaced. 'Well, that there's gotten complicated.'
They were at the door of the embassy, as Che gave Trallo a sidelong look. 'Meaning him? '
'He does appear to have got to her somehow,' Trallo murmured. 'It was all that dancing he did, I reckon.'
Che tried to envisage them: cool, detached Praeda Rakespear with the giant, vital Amnon. They seemed utterly opposite. Then again, at least they're of the same kinden. I'm no one to judge.
'So what does she want to do?' she asked the Fly.
'Bella Che, I don't think she knows herself. We were all hoping you could talk her into making a decision.'
The city of Khanaphes resounded to the tread of marching feet.
From atop the wall it was a spectacle, but Totho found that he could no longer appreciate mere spectacle. The regiments of Khanaphir soldiers were still leaving the city, each parading in mighty armed pomp through the streets before assembling in front of the west gates. Totho was no novice when it came to armies, and his mind afforded plenty of comparisons. In fact I am probably the best-qualified person in the city to say to Amnon what must be said. Except for some of the fugitive Imperials, perhaps, and they were unlikely to be handing out strategic advice.
It was not a Lowlander army, that much was clear. Correction: it is not a Lowlander army such as has been seen these last three centuries. The troops were still arriving by barge from the tributary towns further upriver, but the city itself had mustered a surprising number of soldiers. They were not Ant-kinden here, where every citizen would take up a sword at a moment's unspoken notice, but the Ministers had been able to mobilize a lot of the city's population in the short time they had been given. That would be Amnon's first boast: We are used to fighting off these savages.
The sands have finally begun to move in the glass, though, Totho thought. What you are used to, friend Amnon, is what was, not what is. Time, that long-denied guest, was finally marching on Khanaphes.