She turned away from their scathing looks and found herself facing the grand arch that led into the Place of Government, towards the Scriptora and the pyramid with its eternal watchers.
And tonight the statues have come to life. The struggling part of herself was rising to the surface fast now, howling for her to wake up. Here in her dream there were things that she did not want to see. Her feet were moving her forward, a pace at a time, with a sleepwalker's slow inevitability. She felt the collective gaze of the foreign ambassadors prickling against her back, but none made a move to help her.
Help me, and yet there was no help, and her traitor feet kept taking her, pace by pace, towards that arch ahead. She tried to close her eyes against it, but this was a dream and she could not block it out.
All I wanted to do was leave, she wailed in protest, and the answer, in crystal-clear tones, came back to her.
We do not wish you to leave.
But what about what I want? Except that was beyond the point. She remembered then that she was a slave, that all her race were slaves, and that this dream came from the far past, when what any Beetle-kinden woman wanted carried no more weight than a grain of sand.
But we have broken from all that! The revolution…
But it was a dream from the past, and the revolution had never happened, and besides: this was Khanaphes where her people carried their shackles inside their minds every day, and were joyful about it.
She was now at the arch and stepping into its shadow. The steps of the pyramid rose before her. If she craned her gaze upwards she could see the first hint of white stone.
No!
She made a sudden, furious effort to wrest herself away from the dream – and abruptly she was falling, lurching from her bed in a tangle of sheets, and striking the floor with a cry of panic that must have woken half the embassy. She stayed motionless but trembling, waiting for some revenant left from the dream to rise up from within her mind and recapture her. Then she heard footsteps, and people suddenly shocked into wakefulness were shouting at one another.
I must tell Che, she thought. She's the only one who might understand.
*
Che had not gone outside since the hunt. The rooms of the embassy had become her shell, the blather of the academics her unseen shield.
She had not seen Achaeos's agonized form again since the hunt, either. She imagined it still hanging there inside the wicker cage of the idol, haranguing the Mantis-kinden for their lack of proper faith.
I am running out of places to turn. She felt that the world was waiting for her to step outside, yet some sense, previously unknown, kept feeding warnings to her. Seen out of the window, the day gone by had been piercingly bright, cloudless, like all Khanaphir days. But when she turned away and closed her eyes, her mind embroidered the unseen sky with louring grey, a towering thunderhead of storm. Something is about to happen! The feeling made her head ache, made everyone seem suspicious in the way they looked at her. In the corners of her eyes, those indecipherable little carvings that marched their endless rounds in every room, along every wall, seemed to jump and gibber. The scholarly pedantry of Berjek and Praeda seemed rife with double meanings, hidden secrets. She clung to their presence, though, for anything was better than being alone. Berjek was intent on his studies and nothing more, therefore no good company, while Praeda had her own worries, remaining quiet and thoughtful, as though something was eating at her mind.
Where now? There was one 'where now' left to her, but the thought made her heart tremble. She had skulked in the shadows of this problem all this time, and was not sure that she could take up a lance and strike to the heart of it. To do so would, at the very least, destroy any standing she retained as an ambassador.
Berjek and Praeda reached some kind of impasse in their discussion, and she sensed them turn towards her. She opened her eyes, to see that the sky beyond the windows was already darkening. 'What?' she asked.
'We are in need of your services,' Berjek said. 'As an ambassador, they may listen to you.'
'What do you want from them?' Che asked blankly; their words had passed her by.
She saw Praeda make an exasperated face. 'Che, we need this code-book of theirs, the one for their carvings,' she said. 'There is supposed to be a book containing a translation – a meaning – for these symbols. Berjek and I agree that this is more than idle decoration. There is information encrypted here, but we can't read it, so we need the book.'
'It's one of those things where they clam up as soon as you mention it,' Berjek said glumly. 'They just change the subject, ever so politely.'
'Sacred,' remarked Che, and they stared at her.
'What a peculiar notion,' said Berjek at last.
'It is a very old word,' Che said softly, 'but it's the right word.' She saw him bursting with questions but she held a hand up. 'Don't ask me,' she warned. 'I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it. I cannot explain it in any way that you would understand.'
Berjek rolled his eyes and was about to say something very sharp, but then a drum began sounding out in the garden, a simple, low beat. The three Collegiates exchanged frowns.
'Some local custom…?' Berjek suggested, and then a stringed instrument, high and plaintive and intricate, had added its voice to whatever was going on. As one they passed out onto the balcony to see.
Whatever it was, it was happening right below them, where they would have the best view. Khanaphir servants had staked out torches that blazed with a steady, rosy light, outlining a rough circle on their side of the pond. Che saw some movement in the Imperial embassy across the way, the Wasps emerging to watch in equal puzzlement.
The two musicians, still playing quietly, sat cross-legged outside the circle. Four soldiers had stepped inside it: slender Mantis-kinden wearing chitin and hide cuirasses and helms, and bearing spears. They knelt at four points, spears pointing upwards and inwards, their razor tips describing a smaller space within the larger.
'Is this a play?' Berjek wondered.
'Or an execution?' Che said darkly.
Another figure came striding up towards the circle, and Praeda said, 'Oh, hammer and tongs, look at him,' hand to her mouth, for it was Amnon. The torchlight picked out the grim expression on his face. He wore only a kilt of white with a golden belt, and the dancing red light picked out the lines of his musculature. In each hand there was a sword, not the broad leaf-bladed things his soldiers carried, but blades like curved razors, thin and wicked-looking and extending longer than his arm. He went to the heart of the circle, within the threat of the four spear-points, and Che saw him take a deep breath. He raised the swords, one held forward, one underhand. Che glanced at Praeda and saw the woman had a look of exasperation on her face, one of clear disapproval at whatever the big man was going to do. The thought came to Che, And yet she is still watching, to see what it is all about. If her mind had matched that face she would be back inside already.
The music stopped.
Amnon looked up, and Che knew he was seeking the face of Praeda Rakespear. His expression was so bleak that she thought, He's going to kill himself. This is some kind of Khanaphir suicide ritual.
The drum exploded into greater life, the strings rattling alongside it, and Amnon began to dance.
Che had never seen anything like it. Like a man possessed, the First Soldier had gone mad. From that utter stillness he had become a leaping, spinning maniac and, wherever he went, the swords were weaving about his body in a blur of killing steel. He was in and out of the spearpoints, over and under them, whilst the Mantids that held them kept absolutely still, without a tremor. The swords passed everywhere, cut nothing. Amnon looked neither at the swords nor at the spears nor at his feet. His eyes were always fixed upwards, seeking out Praeda Rakespear.