'That's monstrous,' Che protested in a small voice. She could not conceive of it.
'Who may presume to judge our actions? We who live longer, see further. Without us, the land would dry and dry, over the ages. Instead we have brought that drought before its time, and hold it while the rain gathers, forcing it to burn too bright, to consume itself in its own heat. We have broken our ritual just to save our idiot servants. We have set ourselves back two hundred and seventy-five years of rain.'
Che could not speak. The man smiled, arrogant beyond the dreams of emperors.
'When we shall unleash that hoarded rain, when we have finally gathered sufficient of it, we shall transform the entire world. We shall strike a blow whereby we shall reverse the cataclysm. The land shall be green again, and we shall rule it directly once more.'
His words washed over her, and she swayed under their impact. They were madness and yet, revealed to her by the Masters of Khanaphes, she knew that they must be the truth. Here was a magic a thousand years in the making, and accumulating still, and of such power that the Moth-kinden themselves could not have dreamt of it.
'The rain has washed the Scorpions away?' Thalric's voice broke in on them, an outsider intruding. 'I understand nothing of this.' The Masters' expressions clearly told him: Of course you don't.' Tell me one thing,' he went on, and they looked at him without interest as he asked, 'What will you and your people do when the Empire gets here?'
'Your Empire does not interest us,' said Lirielle. 'Mere children and their toys.'
'But you seem to have realized now what those toys can do,' Thalric insisted. 'A pack of barbarians with a little artillery has nearly destroyed your city. The Empire-'
'We can see your Empire in your mind,' Elysiath silenced him at once, 'like a child's chalk drawing of power. They will come, you assume, and seek to command Khanaphes, to make it part of your dominion.' She stretched expansively. 'It would be tiresome to have to destroy your Empire, and distracting. I imagine, therefore, that we will allow you to bring your governors and your soldiers, and thus pretend that Khanaphes is yours.' She smiled at that, at last a real expression, sharp-edged and aimed directly at him. 'But how long do you believe your Empire will last?'
He stared at her blankly and she continued, 'I am nine times older than your Empire, O savage, and I shall still be young when your kinden have become the playthings of some other children. Your Empire will decay and die in due course. Only we are eternal.'
Thalric opened his mouth, but no words came out.
'But enough of such trifles,' Elysiath said. 'Let us instead talk of you.' She was looking at Che. In fact they were all looking at her.
'Me?' Che stared.
'You who have answered our summons,' the woman said. 'You who have been gifted, by chance, with such an open power. You have been separated from the tawdry heritage of your own people. You have been made special.'
'I …'
'Why did you come here, really?' Elysiath asked her.
'I was sent …' She stuttered into silence, feeling the lie burn on her tongue. 'I was not happy in Collegium. I wanted to discover what has happened to me.'
'And so you heard our call,' the Master told her. 'And you followed your destiny all the way to Khanaphes.'
'But what do you want? Why would you call me?'
'You can see how remiss our servants have been here, and yet you ask that?' Elysiath smiled. 'The old blood that rules our city has grown thin and weak. We should have anticipated that. They hear our commands but faintly. They are only a shadow of their ancestors. We would appoint you as our priestess, instruct you in the ways of our power. We would set you above our other servants, as one who can hear us clearly, and is therefore most dear to us.' The expression she turned on Che was almost maternal. 'You shall become First Minister of our city.'
'Che …' she heard Thalric's warning tone, but she shrugged him off.
'Why?' she asked. 'Why would I?' She expected them to recoil from the insolence of the question, to inform her that serving them was reward enough in itself. She was ready for that.
'Because you are a true scholar,' said Elysiath, 'one who seeks knowledge always. And nowhere will you find such understanding as we have, we who have lived out, in person, the ages that are your kind's ancient history. We can give you knowledge that even the Moths have forgotten, and that, even if they possessed it, they would not share. We can tell you the names of all the kinden in the world. We can reveal to you why it is that the Mantids of the Lowlands hate the Spiders so, though even they have let themselves forget it. We can teach you where the Art came from, and how to truly master it.' Her fond look deepened. 'But more than that, little child, where else have you to go? You are in a world that has no place for you, save here. You are no longer one of your people, no longer a creature of your home. You are adrift in a land that cannot understand you. You cannot even understand yourself. We shall explain everything. We shall give you a place here. You shall be honoured, become the messenger of the Masters to their servants.'
Che tried to refuse them, but the words came reluctantly to her mind and she could not force them out. It was their sympathy that struck her to the heart, the understanding that they had promised. They knew what she had gone through, and she felt tears in her eyes. Where else but here would she ever find real acceptance? Better a servant of the Masters than a lonely outcast forever moving on.
'Yes,' she said, her voice choking.
Elysiath's approval warmed her. 'You know what you must do,' she said, 'to be ours, and to enter into our grace.' At her side Jeherian held out something small, and Che stepped forward, reached up and took it. In her hand rested a curved blade of sharpened copper: a razor.
Kneeling down, she took a fistful of her hair, bringing the razor up to it. Of course she knew what she must do, what the Khanaphir had done since time immemorial in order to demonstrate their servitude.
'Che!' Thalric spoke urgently. 'Don't do this.' She could sense the attention of the Masters focused on her like a pressure guiding her hand. The blade, keener than copper should rightly be, severed the first few strands.
'Che, you heard them,' Thalric persisted. 'They don't care about you. They don't care about anyone in Khanaphes, or anyone in the world. Listen to me, Che, this is insane. You can't want to stay down here in the slime and the dark.'
She just gazed at him, and already felt him as a memory, receding into her past. 'I'm sorry,' she said, not sure who she was sorry for, or why.
'They killed your man Kadro, and that woman his assistant,' Thalric went on. He was fighting to get out the words as though the air itself was smothering him. 'And they don't care. People like us, the Apt kinden, we're just beasts to them, nothing but insects.'
'I know,' she replied sadly, 'but what are we, if not that?' She moved the razor more decisively, severing a handful of her locks, took hold of some more.
'Che, I like your hair. Don't cut it off,' Thalric implored her.
She looked for him again, finding that he was hard to focus on. Even his name seemed strange in her mind.
'Che, please,' he went on, 'listen to me. You know that I care for you. Ever since we first met, there was something about you.' He laughed desperately. 'I'll admit we got off to a poor start, but you can't say I don't have some claim on you. Please, Che, stay with me.'
She shook her head, astonished by his temerity. 'With you?' she said incredulously, the memories drawn back to the surface of her mind whether she wanted them or not. 'Thalric, when the Masters tested me, do you know what they made me live through? What they chose as the most terrible memory I must relive? It was the interrogation room in Myna. That was the worst moment in my life, and they made me watch you torturing me, over and over.'