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Principal Cast
The Empire
Seda, Empress of the Wasps
General Tynan, Second Army
General Marent, Third Army
General Brugan, Rekef
General Lien, Engineers
Colonel Varsec, Engineers
Colonel Brakker, First Army
Colonel Nessen, governor of Helleron
Honory Bellowern, Beetle diplomat
Major Vrakir, Red Watch
Major Vorken, Slave Corps
Major Oski, Fly-kinden, Engineers
Captain-Auxillian Ernain, Bee-kinden, Engineers
Merva, wife of Edvic, governor of Solarno
Lieutenant-Auxillian Gannic, Engineers
Tisamon, Seda’s undead guardian
Collegiates and their Allies
Stenwold Maker, Beetle-kinden War Master, missing, believed dead
Straessa ‘the Antspider’, officer, Coldstone Company
Eujen Leadswell, Beetle-kinden officer, Students’ Company
Castre Gorenn, Dragonfly-kinden, Coldstone Company
Laszlo, Fly-kinden agent, former pirate
Kymene, Beetle-kinden commander, free Mynans
Tactician Milus, Sarnesh Ant-kinden
Sperra, Fly-kinden, agent from Princep Salma
Balkus, commander, renegade Sarnesh from Princep Salma
Sartaea te Mosca, Fly-kinden magician and lecturer
Poll Awlbreaker, Beetle-kinden artificer
Metyssa, Spider-kinden writer
Raullo Mummers, Beetle-kinden artist
Lissart, Firefly-kinden agent, prisoner of Milus
Aagen, renegade Wasp-kinden, now of Princep Salma
Others
Cheerwell Maker, ‘Che’, niece of Stenwold, magician
Thalric, Wasp-kinden renegade, her lover
Tynisa, halfbreed Weaponsmaster, Tisamon’s daughter
Maure, halfbreed magician
Esmail, Assassin Bug spy
Dariandrephos, ‘Drephos’, halfbreed master artificer and leader of the Iron Glove
Totho, his second, halfbreed artificer
Messel
Orothelin
The Hermit
Contents
Part One: Buried Alive
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Part Two: Tremors
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Part Three: On the Edge of the Abyss
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Glossary
Praise for Shadows of the Apt
About the Author
By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Acknowledgements
Part One
Buried Alive
One
It was cold down in the bowels of the earth. The darkness was not the same hindrance to her that it was to her companions, but the cold she could do nothing about.
Worse than that was the absence. Born Apt in Collegium, she had no precise words for it. Perhaps the Moths might have done before her ancestors had thrown them out. To a magician, every place had its own feel. There was some additional sense thus engaged that the Apt could never guess at, and that she herself was still learning how to use. Travelling from her home city to the halls beneath Khanaphes, from the great wild expanses of the Commonweal to the tortuous knots of the Mantis forest, all these places had touched her and informed her, even if she had not realized it. There had been a constant voice, and now it was gone – at best. At worst, when she strained that unnamed sense of hers to the utmost, she could hear something else.