The Scarab Path

'What's Trallo?'

'A Fly-kinden. He was with me in the Alcaia…' A sudden chill struck her. Did they kill him? Had I abandoned him? She had been so concerned with her own surroundings, with this man from her past, she had not wondered what had happened to Trallo.

'He…' She saw Totho frown. 'He was yours?'

The chill increased. 'What did you…? Tell me you haven't hurt him, please.'

'No, not hurt…' His face remained without expression. 'There was a Fly, but he fled, when we took you from the Empire. I was sure he was on their side.'

She gave that one a long pause, trying it from all angles, and finding that it would not fit, no matter how she turned or forced it. 'The Empire?' she finally said, in a small voice. 'It was natives, Totho.' She could not bring herself to mention her foray into Profanity. 'The people who attacked me were natives.'

'Then they must have been in the Empire's pay,' he insisted. 'I took you from the hands of the Empire. A Wasp – and not just any Wasp…' She had held up a hand, but he barrelled on, determined to convince her. 'It was that man who had you captive in Myna. Their Rekef man. I took you from him though. I rescued you.'

He looked for approval, but she sank her face in her hands. She was suddenly feeling ill. 'Totho,' she said quietly, 'what have you done? Have you killed him?'

'The Iron Glove trades with the Empire,' Totho replied slowly, 'and this Thalric is their ambassador here. I merely took you from him… by force. I did not kill him.'

She was surprised at the relief she felt. Thalric had been there, in the tent: the bright figure with hands of fire. She had been rescued from her rescuer. And how many people were following me, and keeping track of me, when I went to commit this crime against the Khanaphir? How could she have missed so many spies and agents following on her heels?

'There's no reason for you to have known, but he worked for Stenwold during the war,' she said. 'It's… complicated.'

'He's the same man that enslaved you, tortured you,' Totho argued stubbornly.

'It's complicated,' said Che again. 'That's all. I had better go and see just what sort of a diplomatic mess has happened in my absence – whether they're searching the city for me.' She shook her head, seeing his suddenly aggrieved expression. 'Or could you at least send someone to my embassy to let them know I'm safe, and then I can finish dinner.'

He made a signal, and one of his men went running from the hall. In that same moment she felt uneasy with him. She could reconcile the face, the voice, but not the man. What has he become, after all this time? In all his designing and making, he had reinvented himself into this man of authority, dark-armoured, close-faced, hard-edged.

'It's good to see you again,' she told him, but was not sure, looking at Totho, how much she was still seeing of her old friend, or what had been brought in to replace what she had once known. 'So what happened to you?' Marger asked, eyeing Thalric's bruises.

'Diplomatic incident,' Thalric replied shortly. He had stormed back into the embassay only a few minutes ago, knowing that one of the Rekef would be with him as soon as they could decide who best to send.

'With the Lowlanders?'

'No, with the locals. Tell me about the Iron Glove.'

Marger took the two statements in, and made the connection without comment. 'What's to say?' Another in his long series of shrugs. 'Trading cartel from the Exalsee, weapons and armour, operating out of Chasme. They've done well for themselves over the last year.'

Thalric leant back in his chair with a disappointed sigh. 'Come on, Marger, I knew that much myself.' Talk to other Rekef men, and it feels as though I'm debriefing some enemy agent I've turned. It was ludicrous, considering his business, but he missed the trust and the certainty of honest spywork.

Marger's expression offered nothing but wide-eyed sincerity. 'What do you mean?'

Thalric sighed. 'You're thinking of me as a courtier, Captain Marger. You're thinking of the Regent, some fop who's never done a day's work for the service. I didn't get my Major's rank through family or favour. I earned it. I know full well that if a group like the Iron Glove was muscling in on your area of operation, you'd get briefed.'

For a long time Marger kept his usual easy smile, no more than the puzzled junior officer. Then it collapsed, and he gave a single hard-won nod. 'Well then, Major, we didn't know they were here, but it seemed likely enough for me to hear something. Nothing certain, mind, since they're tight with their information. They travel all over the Exalsee and beyond, in those helms and that black armour, and they manufacture arms that are strong, cheap, top quality. For special customers they offer more than that, new designs that have the Imperial artificers in fits. The Exalsee is already ahead of us, in some branches of artifice, and the Iron Glove is keeping ahead of them, too.'

Thalric digested this. 'And we trade with them? We should do.'

'As of recently, we do,' Marger confirmed. 'It's difficult, though. We want their schematics, their plans, but they're only prepared to sell us the finished articles. Reverse-engineering is always time-consuming, especially at the level of complexity that the Iron Glove are working at. And there are… other complications.'

'Tell me.'

Marger shrugged again, but it was a shrug from the heart. 'Like I said, they're secretive, and we don't know for sure who's running the cartel. Only… there are rumours.'

Thalric made an impatient gesture.

Marger grimaced. 'You must have heard of the Colonel-Auxillian? That mad halfbreed artificer who captured Lans Stowa and Falme Dae and Tark? Official records have him dead, along with the rest of the garrison at Szar, but… the rumours keep coming back that it's him…'

Thalric was thinking hard now. The armoured man had got the blows in, but he had lowered his guard in order to do it: he had let Thalric know who he was, and his armour alone marked him as a man high in the Iron Glove hierarchy. Where did Stenwold's renegade artificer fit in, though? Where had he gone after Helleron?

He wasn't at Helleron. The recollection came suddenly, like a splash of cold water. He was the one that Scyla replaced, because the boy had run off to… Tark. Tark, where the Colonel-Auxillian Dariandrephos had been practising his siegecraft.

'Send to the General,' he told Marger, who looked suspicious at the instruction. 'Get some clerk to dig out names of the artificers who were assisting the Colonel-Auxillian.' Am I right? He knew he was right, but he had no evidence. Drephos had survived or, if he hadn't, someone who worked with him did.

Oh, my armoured friend, I shall have you yet – if I have to use the Empire to beat you to death. The thought brought a rush of satisfaction, soothed both the bruises and his damaged pride.

Marger was still looking at him. 'Actually, Major…'

'What?'

'I'll be sending to the General as soon as I can get a messenger, but my report is incomplete. I need your help to complete it.'

'Of course, just ask.' In that moment, Thalric felt confident enough to be unassailable.

'You have been somewhat on your own recognizance,' Marger said. 'I understand that you were sent here because of your familiarity with the Lowlanders in general, and now it would seem that we extend that to certain individual Lowlanders that are here. I need to know what your plan of action is, so that the General can endorse it, and so that you and I won't trip over each other.'

And there's a good question, for which I have no answer. 'I am still gathering information,' Thalric remarked.

'You seem to have established a rapport with the Collegiate ambassador,' Marger noted. 'I can see the benefit of that. Do you intend to seduce her?'