‘It is your duty to detect treason, is it not?’ she asked.
‘As a general of the Rekef Inlander, it is.’
‘But treason against what, General?’
‘Against the Empire, Princess Seda.’
Her heart was in her mouth, but for joy, only joy, at such a grand concession. It was not only the title he gave her, a Dragonfly honour she had no true right to, but that he had named the state, and not the man: the Empire not the Emperor. She knew that Uctebri must be within his mind even now, with his unsuspected magic, but the thoughts he was teasing out from General Brugan were only those already grown there, buried deep beneath the man’s sense of duty and honour. Uctebri was just bringing the hidden part of Brugan into the light, perhaps a Brugan hidden even from himself.
‘Treason against the Empire is a deadly foe for all of us,’ she said, leaning even closer, finding him leaning in too, until mere inches separated their faces. His heavy features did not seem so coarse now, not with those shimmering metallic eyes to illuminate them. ‘I imagine it can occur even at the highest levels.’
‘At the very highest,’ he confirmed, so entranced now that he seemed a decade younger, years of harsh duties, betrayals and caution falling away from him, and she knew, just as he said it, that he was now hers.
The acting governor of Helleron was beyond the social pale. He held no dinners or dances, for nobody would have attended save under duress. He went to no entertainments, lest he darken the mood by his very presence. He was like the Empire’s bastard son, the Emperor’s favourite half-caste artificer-king and, save for his few apprentices, he had no intimates. Except for the demands he made of Helleron’s manufacturing power, he had no involvement with the city’s running.
It was a storm through which blue skies could be detected, the magnates of the Council said cautiously. In the Consellar Chambers they met, as they always had before the conquest, and ordered the daily life of the city. Within those walls it was as if General Malkan had never come to visit them and, so long as they adjusted their plans to fuel Drephos’s constant needs for manpower and raw materials, they were left to run the city however they chose.
It could be worse, was their hesitant thought, once their initial revulsion at the governor’s heritage had worked itself out. The Wasps might easily have installed a more interfering governor, a military dictator, some greedy grafter who taxed and robbed them: a man, in short, closer to their own nature. Drephos’s haughty isolation was aggravating, but it was not bad for business, and in their hearts the magnates could almost find forgiveness. At least he leaves us alone.
And behind even their love of money and profitable trade were the other thoughts, left unvoiced. He is a monster, but not the worst kind of monster. Certainly the Wasp soldiers on the streets were a touchy bunch, so there were deaths, though of nobody important. A few buildings burnt, a few small traders were executed, but this was just the result of the Wasp-kinden’s natural exuberance. With a tyrannical governor constantly goading them, things could be much worse, especially for those who had more to lose.
Still, the very stand-offishness of the Colonel-Auxillian inevitably bred curiosity, so the city fought over any scrap of gossip he generated. The simple news that a messenger had come to him from the capital was seized on hungrily. Drephos was a self-contained man: he staved off paperwork and managed with no constant string of orders coming in or reports going out. It was as if the Empire had thrown up its hands in despair over him, leaving him to do what he did best. Nobody else understood his work enough to dictate to him.
Until now.
For now a panting Wasp-kinden had arrived at the Consellar chambers, waving a sealed scroll at a garrison sergeant whilst blurting out the halfbreed’s name. Orders for the Colonel-Auxillian, straight from Capitas, absolute priority, no excuses.
He is in one of the snapbow factories, the messenger was told, and the man set off there straight away. Enough of the seals on the message were recognizable for the garrison sergeant to know the messenger had not been exaggerating his missive’s importance.
*
‘I am informed,’ said Drephos, ‘that the balance of the Sixth Army will be with us in a matter of tendays, bound next for Sarn. How many snapbows can you give them?’ His clear tones cut through the constant clatter of the factory floor that rose up to them.
‘Perhaps another two thousand,’ said Totho, without even needing to think about it. ‘We did dispatch a rail shipment not long ago, although you know what happened to that. General Malkan has sent a messenger for more to be sent by automotive convoy.’
Drephos made a dismissive noise. ‘I am unimpressed so far by the Seventh’s ability to hold on to whatever we give them. First the troop train and now, I hear, the last supply convoy was ambushed as well. Give whatever you have to the Sixth and let the generals squabble over it themselves.’
Totho nodded, gazing down on his busy workers, the banks of engines that were cutting out his machine parts, rifling the barrels, casting the ammunition. He sensed, more than saw, as Drephos moved closer to him, one metal hand and one living one closing on the guard-rail.
‘I hear you have solved your discipline problems,’ the master artificer said.
‘I have, sir.’
There was a pause, and Totho glanced sideways at the Colonel-Auxillian, to see him staring out across the factory floor in an oddly distracted way. This was the first time that Totho had seen him in several tendays, for the man’s own projects had kept Drephos entirely secluded. Behind them both, the massive form of Big Greyv the Mole Cricket-kinden made the gantry groan in protest. The man was huge, a ten-foot-tall obsidian block with fingernails like chisels, but he was Drephos’s artificer of choice to work with, possessing a patience and care as impressive as his bulk. He hardly ever spoke, and Totho guessed this was another reason Drephos had chosen him for the new project.
Kaszaat, standing in the Mole Cricket’s shadow, seemed infinitely fragile.
‘And you have continued experimenting, of course?’ Drephos prompted.
Totho had not realized that he knew. ‘I’ve been tinkering with the snapbows, sir. I’ve being trying to add a built-in magazine to improve the shot-rate.’ As always, he warmed to his topic once he had started. ‘The problem is that use of a nailbow’s spring-and-lever mechanism shakes the aim and therefore halves the useful range, while gravity-feeding jams too often, and clockwork-’
‘Is too expensive and takes too long to make,’ Drephos agreed, clearly pleased with his persistence.
‘How…?’ He had not been actually ordered not to speak of it, but the shroud of secrecy about Drephos’s recent researches had been so plain. ‘How does your own work go, sir?’ Totho asked.
‘How indeed,’ said Drephos vaguely, not being evasive but genuinely considering. ‘The coming war with Sarn shall be remembered, Totho. There shall be names immortalized in the histories.’
If anyone survives to write them. Drephos’s current strange detachment worried Totho, for normally the man was inclined to be expansive, even boastful, about his work. Now, though, he had clearly chanced on something that seemed to have shaken even his customary composure.
‘Tell me, what do we work towards?’ the Colonel-Auxillian asked unexpectedly.
‘Sir?’ Totho glanced over his shoulder at Kaszaat and Big Greyv, but neither provided any answers.
‘Archetypes,’ Drephos said, almost too quietly to be heard. ‘Just as they say there is a Wasp archetype, a knowledge of which gives the Wasps their Art, and likewise with all the other kinden, so too there is a weapon archetype, Totho. Can you grasp that? A weapon of weapons where to simply grasp the hilt, to simply possess it, is to slay your enemies? No contest of skill needed, no inclement weather or defensive wall, but death, delivered pristine and precise.’