Varmen was not overly talkative, nor aloof either, for he responded readily when questioned. He and Thalric exchanged anecdotes intermittently, a well-travelled round of Imperial localities, favourite drinking dens, family names and public figures. Che hovered at the edges of their laconic conversations, feeling excluded by their shared race and past. Even she, though, could detect the huge gaps in their exchanges, the vast areas of personal history unvisited. Neither of them was keen to pin down any specifics of the respective military careers that each had abandoned.
The road that he was now guiding them along had provided the Empire’s invasion route, all those years ago.
Now that they were camped, Thalric was taking first watch, while Che had taken to her bedroll and let sleep overcome her. She had left her herbs simmering over the fire as instructed, although the two Wasps wrinkled their noses at the smell of them.
Above her head, a small spider had already begun to build its trap within the ring of twisted wire.
Just the other side of sleep, the fierce sun of Khanaphes blazed down, fragments of day and night, times past and present, faces she had known. Her newfound heritage was clawing at her, seizing control of her head and forcing her eyes open to see…
The sun over Khanaphes was a bronze nail-head driven into a cloudless sky.
Ethmet, the First Minister, stood on the steps of the Scriptora and watched his world teetering on the brink of destruction. It was an unexpectedly peaceful sight, for the second sun above him was descending with gentle grace: a black and gold orb blazing back the light of the true sun, suspended impossibly over his city like nothing he had ever witnessed. He could hear a faint insect-like drone, but he could not tell whether it came from this floating giant or from the dozen smaller machines that buzzed in wide circles, keeping a vigilant perimeter.
The city of Khanaphes, which had stood changeless for countless centuries, was now becoming unrecognizable to the old Beetle-kinden minister. It seemed that he had been serving the unseen, unheard Masters for ever, just one link in the chain of First Ministers stretching back into the golden dawn of time. He had thought, in time, to pass on the mantle of responsibility to one of his like-minded colleagues, had thought to become another name carved on the lists adorning one wall of the Scriptora’s hall of records. A legacy of honour, surely, but also a curiously anonymous one, in no way marked out from his predecessors or his successors. But that was not to be, for history had chosen him to be significant after all, and the thought made him weak.
Khanaphes could have recovered from last year’s unpleasantness, he knew. For the Scorpions to come from the deep desert and conquer half the city, aided by agents of the Wasp Empire, that was a terrible thing. The Scorpions had gone, though – the power of the Masters had put the rabble back in their place, the river Jamail overflowing its banks to wash Khanaphes clean of them. Ethmet should have rejoiced at this clear sign of favour, unprecedented in a thousand years, but even then he had fretted. He did not want to carry the burden of importance. Let me pass on and be gone, and let my name survive only in stone.
But then the Wasp-kinden had come, in force. They had come with ambassadors who had explained to him that it was rogue elements fleeing the justice of their Empress who had been behind the Scorpion attack. Ethmet had recognized the lie, though even the men they had sent to him believed their words to be true. Nonetheless he thanked them on behalf of the city, and had assured them that the Dominion of Khanaphes bore them no ill-will.
It was not quite as easy as that, they then explained. The Wasp Empire felt dishonoured by the incident, cut to the bone by shame and guilt at the way its renegades had injured a neighbouring power. They had come to put matters right, to ensure that Khanaphes was properly defended whilst rebuilding its strength.
Ethmet had assured them that the Khanaphir trusted to the Masters, and therefore such kindness really was not necessary. By that time, messengers from upriver had been flocking to the city with further news.
You should not put yourself to any trouble, he had assured the Wasps, and they had told him that there would be no further trouble, and that was what the soldiers were here for – the soldiers who had been marching south from the Imperial border, come to defend Khanaphes from… From just about everything, it seemed, including any aberrant belief amongst the city’s leaders that it might not require defending.
So far there had been little trouble: Ethmet had ordered it so. The Khanaphir guardsmen and militia had stood by as the Empire entered their city, not raising sword or spear against the intruders. For tendays now there had been Wasp soldiers on every street, in every marketplace, on the city walls, watching the rebuilding. Ethmet had wrestled with his conscience, for there had once been a rod of iron to his spine, which countenanced no deviation from The Way Things Were Done – as set down a millennium ago by the Masters themselves. Surely, having witnessed what must have represented the Masters’ intervention on behalf of their favoured city, that rod should be even more inflexible now? Surely he should be exhorting his people to rise up and slay the Wasps, to defy their new-minted Empire?
And yet, when he reached out for that rod of iron, he found that it had rusted through. Something within his proud heart had shattered quietly when the Scorpion-kinden had sundered the walls of his city, and captured every street and building as far as to the western bank of the river. Now his former strength of purpose was gone, and he hid a terrible fear inside him: that if the Khanaphir fought against this new invader, the Masters might do nothing to save them. Ethmet did not think on the flood that had driven away the Scorpions, but only upon all those losses they had suffered before the flood had come. What more might be lost? Would the hand of the Masters serve only to sweep the Wasps from a barren ruin? It was blasphemous, such thinking, yet he could not rid himself of it. He could not give the order to go to war.
He had meanwhile called on the Masters, night after night, praying for guidance. There are foreigners profaning your city, great ones, he had told them. Shall we do nothing?
And an echo had come back, Nothing, only nothing – so that he could not know if he had been answered or not. He had eaten the drug called Fir to open his mind to them, and reached for their guidance, but still that empty Nothing had returned to him. He felt as though the Masters themselves were waiting, and likewise holding their breath.
And worming in his gut was the knowledge that it had not been his prayers that had inspired the Masters to drive away the Scorpion-kinden of the Many of Nem. For all that he had entreated them, as their pre-eminent servant, they might as well have been no more than the statues they had left behind.
As yet the hand of these new conquerors had been felt only lightly. Some foreigners within the city had been exiled, others arrested and taken away. Traffic in and out now had to pass Wasp checkpoints. Ships were searched at the docks. There was a curfew, though enforced erratically. A few deaths, a few more beatings: the Wasp soldiers were being kept in check. A few who had killed or raped in a manner that, by some invisible yardstick, was unacceptable had been executed publicly on crossed spears thrust up through their living bodies. So far, the Wasps were being very considerate conquerors, but Ethmet had an unpleasant feeling that this must surely change.
And then, only this morning, the Imperial colonel serving as chief ambassador had come to him with news which was plainly scarcely less new to the colonel himself.