Thalric found himself sharing a glance with Tynisa. ‘Explain, if you can,’ he prompted.
‘I never thought I’d be having this conversation with one of the Apt,’ Maure remarked drily. ‘But you’ve been in Che’s shadow long enough, and over in Khanaphes I think that not understanding and not believing are still two different things. Also. .’ But whatever she was about to say about Tynisa — Inapt but raised by the Apt — went unspoken. ‘I have a rock, say, and you know that I will throw it. Can you tell me where it will land? No. But you know it will come from my hand, so you could try predicting its future. But the further the rock travels away from me, the further from your prediction of its landing it is likely to end up. Well, then, try to turn that inside out and you have a magician predicting the future.’ At the pointed silence that followed she sighed again and went on, ‘I can find where Che is going to be — she is significant, and her actions will be significant. When she exerts her power the world bends around her, and I can pare down the future to that moment — where the likelihood is that Che will be, and where she will act. But I cannot tell you the path that will bring her there, so it is like the rock in reverse — I know where it will land, but not from where it is thrown. Perhaps on my best day I could track it back a little, but here. . the landscape is too heavily folded and twisted. More, whoever she is with has some magic and Art of their own that conceals them, and her. But I can see where they will take her in the end. . Soon, tonight.’
‘Where?’ Tynisa demanded, and it was plain that ideas of ambush were already in her mind.
There came a sound from Amnon, merely a wordless indication that he had seen something. Immediately afterwards, Maure pointed. ‘There.’
‘What is it?’ Thalric demanded, ducking over to stand at the man’s shoulder.
‘Fire,’ Amnon said flatly, his snapbow resting on the hatch rim.
Thalric peered out into the darkness, where a burgeoning red glow was immediately evident, some distance away through the trees.
‘They’re burning the forest down?’ he suggested. Must be the Empire, surely.
‘Burning something,’ Amnon confirmed. ‘I don’t see it spreading.’
‘There,’ Maure said again, and Tynisa glanced back to her.
‘That’s where. .?’
‘It is a Mantis hold,’ Maure said firmly. ‘That is where Che will be.’
‘They’re going to burn her?’ Tynisa hissed.
‘They would not. She is not fit for that,’ Maure told her. Then added hurriedly, ‘It is the Mantis way. Fire is the warrior, destroyer and purifier. A fire such as that is meant only for their honoured dead. The Nethyen are holding a wake.’
‘A little premature when we’re not done fighting,’ Thalric suggested.
‘The Mantis-kinden are never done with fighting,’ she told him bluntly.
‘Of course, I forgot. If it involves Mantis-kinden, it’s all about death,’ he spat tiredly. Tynisa shot him an angry look, but he weathered it, unrepentant.
‘There was more to their ways, in the past. In the Commonweal there still is. But when they are faced with doubt, with change, or with loss, it is the old certainties that they fall back on, and none more so than death,’ Maure pronounced. ‘They mourn a thousand years of decline. They have given up looking to the future, for they cannot find their way towards it. The coming of the Empire has only brought them sooner to a destination they have been approaching for centuries. So they burn their dead and sing their songs for the last time.’ Her voice had grown ragged and distant, and Thalric saw that she was shaking slightly.
‘Maure!’ he snapped, in his best officer’s voice, and she twitched and opened her eyes.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘The forest reeks of their despair. It can be. . hard to stay clear of it.’
Thalric wanted to say something like ‘I can imagine’, but it was so abundantly plain he could not, that any consolation would be absurd. ‘Well, we know something now that we didn’t before,’ he concluded brightly. ‘We know where they’ll bring Che tonight — guest of honour at a mass funeral.’
‘Fine,’ Tynisa agreed. ‘So that’s where we’ll go.’
The other three regarded her doubtfully, and she faced them down as though they were the enemy.
‘I am to fight their champion tomorrow. This badge and my sword have won that for us. Tonight, Che will be taken to their hold. Tonight we will meet her there, to get her out if we can, or to show her that we are there for her if we cannot. I will not sit out the night in this rotting coffin if we know where Che will be.’
‘They’ll kill us,’ Thalric insisted.
‘They will — tomorrow. After the duel they’ll kill us. Probably they’ll find some reason to try even if I win. So I’m going to walk into their hold and wait for Che, because I don’t see that there’s much to lose in doing so. You stay here if you want.’
‘Maure?’ Thalric pressed, because the magician seemed to have the best-honed survival instincts of anyone there, save for himself.
‘They will not kill us out of hand, I think. The duel is too important to them. But their despair is very heavy. It may make them act in strange ways. Mantis honour has not fitted in with the world well in living memory, and now they have to twist and strain it to breaking point to adapt to the events around them. It is hard to say what they might consider the honourable course of action.’
‘So you’re staying?’ Thalric confirmed.
‘I’m going,’ Maure said. ‘Because, once Tynisa leaves here, there is nothing stopping the Nethyen from killing the rest of us. She is our champion. They don’t need the rest of us.’
Tynisa’s expression was openly defiant. ‘Stand aside, Amnon. I’m going.’
‘We all are,’ the Khanaphir replied heavily, slinging his snapbow.
‘She is Amalthae,’ the Mantis-kinden answered.
Che nodded cautiously. It was not quite true to say that the great insect was looking at her — for its attention seemed entirely devoted to cleaning the razor-sharp barbs on its forelimbs, one by one. But its eyes were vast, all-seeing. There were few places in this little clearing where Che would not become an object of that peripheral scrutiny.
‘And who are you?’ she asked him. The Mantis frowned, as though surprised that anyone should wish to know. He was a long-boned man, perhaps ten years Che’s senior, or perhaps not even that. His face was as expressionless as an Ant’s, and for the same reason. He wore no armour, only loose garments dyed in forest colours, while a bladed gauntlet was folded into his belt.
‘Ceremon, I was called,’ he said, pausing over the name so that she wondered just how long it had been since someone had actually called him anything at all save for Amalthae’s. . what?
‘Her companion?’ she ventured.
‘Her consort,’ he corrected.
‘You have the Art of Speech?’ As well as being constantly under that faceted sight, there was no place in this clearing that would not be within the lightning reach of the creature’s arms. When those limbs had snatched her up from the ground and drawn her close to the mantis’s scissoring mandibles she had believed it was the end. Something other than hunger had been behind the strike, however — something other even than Mantis-kinden hatred of intruders, it seemed, for here she was, still alive.
Ceremon just nodded. Like Amalthae, he did not look at her directly much, yet was always aware of where she was and what she did. Every small move of hers froze the pair of them for the briefest moment as they recalculated the quickest way to catch or kill her if that proved necessary. So far, Che had given them no excuse.
‘So. . when do the rest get here?’ she tried.
‘No others. Just us.’ Amalthae went entirely still, even her antennae barely swaying, and Ceremon was suddenly motionless too, fading deeper into himself so that Che’s sense of his presence — for all that he stood right before her — almost vanished. Had she come walking into the clearing just then, she would have noticed neither man nor insect.