‘There won’t have been time for that news to have prompted anything,’ Drephos said dismissively. ‘But something . . . I think our new visitors will be speaking the same old words, however they disguise them.’
‘The Bee-killer,’ Totho identified.
Drephos let a long pause slide by before he confirmed that, and then only with the briefest grunt. Totho heard his metal hand – that wonder of artifice – scrape on the balcony rail.
‘So give it to them.’
That got the man’s attention. Drephos turned sharply, stalking back to hunch in the balcony archway, a stark silhouette against the sunlit sky. ‘You think so, do you?’
Totho put down his reports. ‘In truth? No. But I’m not sure why you don’t.’
‘I’m undecided.’
‘Drephos . . .’ Totho stood up and crossed the room to him, trying to make out the man’s expression. ‘The march of technology, the inevitable broadening of the scope and purpose of warfare . . . Every invention that leaves our foundries has only made your words more true. I confess, the Bee-killer is still too much for me, especially since I was the one who . . . deployed it, that one time. But I’ve been waiting for you to talk me round. So, what is it?’
The master artificer took a deep breath and returned to the balcony rail, forcing Totho to join him.
‘We’ve worked wonders here, haven’t we? With this place?’ And now surely Drephos was prevaricating, and that was not like him. Beneath them, Chasme was a sprawling blot on the landscape: workshops and factories; piers and docks; two airfields crowded with a bizarre assortment of fliers; tavernas and boarding houses and brothels. Actual room to live was fitted around all the rest, in alleys and cellars or crammed between buildings.
All of it was lawless. Chasme had always been a pirate town, a pirate artificer town, long before Totho and Drephos had arrived. It had been fertile soil for them, though. The rabble of Chasme appreciated good workmanship, and although there were no definite leaders amongst them, the Iron Glove’s word spoke loudest. What Drephos wanted, Drephos got.
‘What are you thinking? You want this new lot to disappear? I can give the word,’ Totho suggested.
‘And word would then get back to the Empire,’ Drephos noted.
Totho had never been good at talking to people, but then Drephos had never been good at listening, so they were well matched there. Eventually he went with: ‘All right, what?’
‘There they are.’ Drephos’s real flesh hand jabbed out towards the docks, but there was such a bustle of business there that Totho could not make out what he had spotted. Since the double invasion of Solarno, many merchants had gone elsewhere around the Exalsee with their wares or their orders, and nowhere had benefited more than Chasme.
‘I know you still keep spies in the Lowlands . . . in Collegium.’ Another non-sequitur, another twist of Drephos’s mind as it gained purchase on the problem.
The stab of guilt he felt at that surprised Totho. ‘I don’t. Not like that. But I pay for news from there, certainly. Well enough that I’ve a few who go out of their way to get it to me.’ He shrugged, failing at nonchalance. ‘What of it?’ In the face of Drephos’s scrutiny he hunched his shoulders defensively. ‘It’s not . . . it’s not her. I’m not . . . for news of her. Just . . . I used to live there . . .’
His words dried up as he realized that his evasions were pointless. Drephos’s mind had already moved elsewhere.
‘Perhaps,’ the Colonel-Auxillian murmured, ‘you should listen to spies from closer to home. You’ve seen how much gold is coming into our coffers?’
‘More than even we can use.’ Totho shrugged. It was not about the money, for either of them.
‘And how much of that is Imperial coin? Less than there used to be, and we’re selling much further afield. Even those who can’t afford us still send their little delegations. The whole world wants us to arm it. Anyone who we turn away knows that, wherever else they go – Solarno, Dirovashni – they’re getting second best. And those ports know it as well. Chasme’s growing power – our iron fist – has not gone unnoticed.’
‘Then perhaps we need to clench it. Or whatever you do with fists. We could outfit an army that could swallow up the Exalsee – if you wanted.’ Totho spread his hands. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing more than life has provided me with: the tools to move the world. So long as the rest of the world is content for me to move it . . .’
‘And the Bee-killer?’
‘You’re beginning to sound like the Empire.’
‘I want to understand,’ Totho pressed.
Drephos took a deep breath. ‘If it were you asking for it, I’d hand over the formula. You would respect it, use it responsibly,’ he said, as if not speaking of an invention the only purpose of which was to massacre thousands. ‘The Empire . . .’ He shook his head. ‘But they are here, I think. Let us pretend they just wish to place orders and enquire after our latest devices. I tire of spies.’
He led the way down, Totho tripping along in his wake, staring worriedly at the other man’s back. Drephos was not one for soul-searching: he was a creature of certainties. Now he was talking like an old man.
The Bee-killer . . . Drephos had gifted war with countless inventions, from small devices for the more efficient aiming of bombs to grand projects such as the Sentinels or the greatshotter artillery. He had no family, nor love for any other being, no greed for coin for its own sake, only to feed the fires of his projects. Even for Totho, the closest thing to a kindred spirit that he had, he surely felt no more than the distant fondness a man might grant a pet.
And yet his name was linked to one invention like no other, and that was the Bee-killer. The atrocity at Szar was laid at his door: a chemical devised by his underlings and used by Totho against the Empire had somehow become Drephos’s great work in the minds of many, many people. And now the Empire wanted to possess more of it.
He wondered if that was it, the vice that Drephos found himself in: a man whose least-favoured child has become his heir apparent.
Then they were stepping down into one of the workshops, with Iron Glove artificers and staff clearing out of the way, and the Imperial delegation was being ushered in. There were a dozen of them, and mostly the Wasps and Beetles that Totho had come to expect: not fighting men but Consortium merchants and factors not above a little snooping in their spare time.
In the lead, though, was a different model of trouble. Totho had seen only a scant handful of halfbreeds allowed any authority by the Empire – one of whom was standing beside him. This new man looked to be in charge, though, and he saluted Drephos as though the other man’s old rank still held.
‘Good day, sir. It’s a pleasure finally to meet you,’ the Imperial halfbreed said with a bright, sharp smile. ‘Lieutenant-Auxillian Gannic at your service.’
Six
‘I remain acting governor of Collegium,’ General Tynan summarized his newly received orders. ‘No new troops to garrison the city. No progress towards the western coast, Vek, Tsen . . .’ He stared at the scroll before him as though it was his own death warrant, but one that he had lost the strength to fight against. ‘A mealy-mouthed commendation that I have done well, and not even Her Majesty’s own seal.’