And she stood atop the pyramid, but fought the impulse that would have her look down. The shaft was at her very toes, while either side of her those majestic and inhuman statues kept their eternal watch.
Her head was being drawn down: the dream wanted her to see. She teetered on the edge of waking, the facade of her dream cracking. Don't want to… I don't want to… Because there was something down there, and it was rising up.
She woke with a sharp start, as though she had been slapped. For a moment the dream still clung to her, its sights, sounds, the very texture of the air confusing her. Where am I?
She froze. The air around her was chill and damp, kissed by the Jamail. She was high up, and the cloud-strung moon's light settled on little, but it settled on the pale stone of the statues looming across from her. They had always looked outwards before, but now one was turned towards her – and it was smiling slightly as if in amusement at her folly.
She screamed, a short and ugly sound, as she felt the sudden rush of air from the pit at her very feet -as if something was rising from the depths.
She stumbled backwards, abruptly without sure footing, tripping back towards the descending steps of the pyramid. She reached out for a support, grasped the arm of one of the statues, expecting cold stone. What she touched was slick and slippery, not stone but flesh.
She screamed again and let go. Part 4 The Voice of the Masters Twenty-Nine On this day, the one hundred and seventy-fifth day of the seven hundred and forty-second year from the founding of the Bounteous City, were the tallies made of all peoples who dwell under the hand of the Masters, happy are we to stand in their shadow…
Also in this year the harvest was of unexpected richness, so that the stores of the city were increased by three parts in one hundred for the coming years. The word of the Masters has cautioned that our storehouses must remain full, for there are lean years foreseen in the east…
Also in this year… 'Bella Cheerwell?'
The words – her own name – startled her from her reverie. Che blinked, stared at the wall she was crouching before. For a moment the hieroglyphs only marched their incomprehensible procession before her eyes. Then they swam and twisted, as though suddenly viewed through tears. Comprehension came as naturally as breathing, and she saw: Also in this year did the First Soldier of Khanaphes take to the West River Plains so as to turn aside the advances of the Many of Nem…
But what did that remind her of…?
'Che! What's wrong with you?'
It was an irritation that would not go away. She shook her head and looked up to see a figure standing beside her. Beside her, not over her, though she knelt, for it was Flykinden: a man in a traveller's garb and cloak, with a little snarl of beard at his chin, in the Spider manner. His face seemed familiar to her…
A tenday of personal history slipped, like a great rock mass long hanging, and descended on her without mercy, leaving no survivors. Che gasped, flinched back from Trallo so hard that she bounced her head against the wall she had just been studying. Khanaphes – the Fir eaters – the hunt – Thalric – Totho – the Empire – war! It was all so much to fit in place that she nearly choked on it.
'Trallo-?' She stared at the Fly wildly, trying to work out precisely where they were. Khanaphes, yes, but she did not recognize this district. Beyond the worried-looking Fly, the shaven-headed people were going about their business in a narrow street, without even a glance for the mad foreign woman. They continued herding their goats and sheep and aphids, carrying jars of water or oil, or baskets of grain.
'Che,' said Trallo patiently, trying to capture her attention. 'I have been looking for you for two days.' He let that sink in before adding, out of sheer exasperation, 'And do you know how difficult it is to stay out of my sight for two days? People have been worried sick. All sorts of things have been going wrong. You're supposed to be an ambassador and-'
'And whose money paid for all this searching? Which of all your masters?' she snapped back at him, before she could stop herself. She grimaced instantly. 'Trallo, I'm sorry…'
'No, that was a fair shot,' he said, not seeming at all hurt or even repentant. 'My own house got a little untidy towards the end, but then I wasn't expecting open war between the Iron Glove and your Wasp fellow.' His expression soured. 'I wasn't expecting open war, full stop. Che, I won't pretend that your halfbreed friend hasn't wanted me to track you down, but it's your own people who are going mad right now. After all that's happened, they want to get straight out of town – and, to be frank, so do I.'
'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.