Dragonfly Falling (23 page)

‘I’ve never really
visited an Ant city before,’ she admitted. ‘It’s not at all what I expected.’

Sperra, virtually
sitting in her shadow, snorted. ‘This isn’t just any Ant city. Sarn’s
different. I’ve been in Tark and Kes before and it wasn’t fun.’

‘But they have their
foreign quarters too,’ Che recalled from her studies.

‘They do, only there’re
guards watching every wretched thing you do, waiting for you to take a step out
of line, and nobody talks any more than they have to, so’s to be like the
locals. And if you’re Fly-kinden like me, you’re on double guard, because if
something goes wrong and they don’t know who did it, they just hang the first
person they don’t like, and they always assume it’s us. And, ah! The slaves.
There are slaves everywhere, and what their masters overlook, the slaves’ll
spot. And you just know they’ll tell their owners, because the Ants don’t have
any use for slack slaves.’

Che grimaced. However
bad Ant-kinden masters might be, a severity surely bred of frugality and
efficiency, she had herself become a slave to the Empire, and she was willing
to wager that was worse. ‘Your kinden don’t keep slaves – do you?’ she
enquired. The Fly-kinden fielded no armies, nor had any great repute as
artificers, scholars or social reformers. They tended to slip off the edge of
the College curriculum.

‘Oh they’d tell you that
in Egel or Merro,’ Sperra said disdainfully. ‘But don’t you believe them. It’s
all about the money – families owing other families. And if your family can’t
settle what’s due, they’ll sell you. Indenture, it’s called, only basically
it’s slavery.’

‘Was that what happened
to you?’

‘Would have done,’ the
Fly replied, ‘only I was smart enough to skip out. Everyone thinks it’s so
homey to be one of my kinden: all family and sticking together and everyone
mucking in, all rosy cheeks and cheeky banter. If it’s so wonderful, why do you
think so many of us are living anywhere but home?’

The two of them silently
watched the ebb and flow of Sarnesh business for a little while, until Sperra
added, ‘But here, I could like it here. No slaves here in Sarn, and out-landers
seem to get a fair deal.’

‘If you’d come here
three generations back, it would have been just like Tark and Kes,’ Che
observed, and instantly saw that Sperra did not know what she meant. ‘It’s all
down to a man called Jons Pathawl. A reformer.’

‘Never heard of him,’
Sperra said. ‘What did he do?’

‘He came to Sarn from
the College and started preaching about freedom and equality and all that.’

The Fly stared at her.
‘You’re telling me that one man just talking did all this? And they didn’t lock
him up or anything?’

‘Actually they did lock
him up, and he was going to be hanged as a warning to other outspoken scholars.
He had a band of followers, though, and they made a bid to free him. In the
process they got in the way of Vekken assassins come to wipe out the whole
Royal Court prior to one of their wars. So, as a mark of thanks, the Queen and
her court agreed to listen to what Pathawl had to say.
That
was what changed everything. He must have been a very persuasive speaker.
Still, look at Sarn now. There’s more money here than in any of the other
city-states, and instead of a force of slaves who are a liability as soon as
things get hot, you’ve got a resident population of experts and advisers who
will fight to defend what they view now as their home. Plus, Sarn gets all the
best of the Collegium scholars after Helleron’s had its pick.’

Achaeos slipped into the
taverna at that point, sitting down at their table with a quick glance towards
the door.

‘I have made contact,’
he began.

‘With the – the
Arcanum?’

He nodded, his
expression suggesting that it was a name best not spoken openly. ‘We can speak
to them. I have a name now. A place to go.’

‘You want me to come?’

‘I have thought about
it. To them I will be only an intermediary. A Moth bringing the word of Collegium
will seem wrong, to them. It is best that
you
speak
for Stenwold.’

The ‘place to go’ turned
out to be a tall-roofed house almost beside the wall of the city, just where
the foreign quarter met the river. Sarn had no inferior districts as such, and
Che understood the appeal to foreigners of doing business where the Ant militia
was always tough on robbery and double-dealing. Even so, the place that Achaeos
had found stood in the murkiest district that the city had to offer.

There was no sign, no
indication of the building’s use, but they went along at dusk when the street
was nearly deserted, a pair of Ant soldiers on patrol just turning off at the
far end.

‘Is there going to be
trouble here?’ Che asked him cautiously.

‘It’s possible,’ he
admitted. ‘I have not been told so outright, but I believe that the Sarnesh are
inclined to turn a blinder eye here than they do elsewhere in the city. I
suspect their rulers benefit somehow – perhaps their own spies can deal here
for information, or goods not sold openly. This place is a gambling house, also
a brothel, where the rougher kind of foreigner comes to deal and talk. I’d
guess every so often the Sarnesh raid it, and no doubt the owners arrange in
advance who gets caught and who is given warning to flee. A dangerous line to
walk.’

She nodded. ‘I hate to
remind you, but we’re not exactly the rougher kind of foreigner.’

He gave her a smile that
was almost rakish. ‘Try me,’ he suggested.

Inside the place was
dark. There were two half-shuttered lanterns hanging low on the walls but, if
she had not had the Art to see through the gloom, she would have tripped over
every projecting foot and every chair. As it was, although Achaeos slipped
between the tables deftly, she had to push her way through the narrow gaps. The
occasional patron gave her a baleful look, but she realized that it was those
who minded their own business and did not look up who were likely to be the
more dangerous.

The clientele were a
ragged pack. She saw plenty of Fly-kinden, who always seemed to throng these
kinds of places. There were a couple of Spiders, too, and several Mantis-kinden
who looked perennially ready for a fight. There was even a Mantis warrior in
attendance on a sly-eyed Spider lady, a partnership which stretched Che’s
imagination, and two robed Moth-kinden, who watched them pass with blank white
eyes while sharing a sweet-smelling pipe between them.

There was no bar as
such; instead a Beetle-kinden sat at a small table by the rear door and sent a
young Fly girl back for beer when it was requested. Achaeos went up to him and
exchanged a few words before palming a gold Central to him, whereupon the man
nodded to one of the occupied tables.

It was a gaming table,
five-handed, with cards being snatched, turned and discarded almost faster than
Che could follow. There was something nearly Ant-kinden about it, for none of
the players spoke, each just following the course of the game by mutual
consensus. There was no room to stand back a step, so she ended up right at the
shoulder of one of the gamblers. He was holding his cards at such an acute
angle that she wondered how even he could read them.

One of the players was a
Mantis, who also seemed to be the dealer. Her hard face, with its pointed chin
and ears, should have been attractive, except it was frozen with the cold
disdain of her race, which made her seem only hostile and bleak. As her hands
made automatic motions with the cards she glanced up at Achaeos and nodded
briefly.

‘Last hand, last hand,’
she said, ‘then break for drinks and begin again.’

They ante’d up, and Che
noticed the stock lying in the middle of the table was partly coins and partly
rings, brooches and other small items of jewellery that had probably recently
changed ownership. There was a flurry of cards, back and forth with increasing
urgency, and the hand fell to a copper-skinned little man seated to the
Mantis’s left, someone resembling a Fly-kinden but not quite. When he had
scooped up his winnings, three of the gamblers rose and took their leave, with
curious glances at Che, leaving only the Mantis and the diminutive man with the
winning streak.

‘Sit,’ the woman
instructed. ‘Master Moth, you’ve been spotted, and you’ve been asking some
questions. I’ll have your name.’

‘Achaeos, Seer of
Tharn,’ he replied easily, taking the seat across from her.

‘Who’s your doxie,’ the
small man asked. ‘Are you selling or renting her?’

‘My
patroness
,’
Achaeos said pointedly, ‘is Cheerwell Maker of the Great College.’

The little man snorted,
but the Mantis nodded thoughtfully. ‘An interesting pairing, Master Achaeos. My
own name is Scelae. This creature is Gaff. You understand that those whom we
serve have greater emissaries than we. We are merely convenient to greet new
arrivals.’

Achaeos nodded, as Gaff
produced a pipe from within his leather jerkin and lit it – Che blinked in
surprise – by a flicker of flame issuing from his thumb. Some Ancestor Art of
his kinden, she realized, whichever kinden that was.

‘She’s your patroness,
let her talk,’ said Scelae, leaning back in her chair.

Che looked to Achaeos
for support but he remained without expression, waiting for her to speak. She
swallowed uncomfortably. ‘You . . . You and your masters have heard of the
Wasp-kinden, of course,’ she began.

Eyes hooded, Scelae
nodded. The little man stopped puffing on his pipe for a moment and then
started again.

‘Your business is information,
I’m sure,’ Che continued, hearing her voice tremble with nerves, ‘so you’ve
heard the news from Tark.’

‘And from further,’ Gaff
agreed. He glanced from Scelae to Che. ‘If Tark’s your high card, lady, then
I’ll raise you.’

‘Quiet,’ Scelae told him.
‘Assume we are aware of the Wasp-kinden, their armies and their Empire, and
assume, as you say, that information is our business. What would you say to our
masters?’

Che screwed up her
courage, trying to present the words as Stenwold would have done. ‘That old
divisions must be put aside,’ she said. ‘We need your help, and you need ours.’

‘Who is “we”?’

She was about to say her
uncle’s name, which would surely mean less than nothing, and then Collegium,
but what should that matter to the Moths of Dorax living so many miles away?

‘The Lowlands,’ Che said
at last.

Scelae looked at Gaff,
and the little man shrugged.

‘Nobody tells me
anything,’ he said, ‘but I hear on the wind that the big men in Tharn have done
a whole lot of considering of their position recently. But then I hear all
sorts, and most of it’s rubbish,’ he added conversationally to Achaeos.

‘Where are you staying?’
Scelae asked Che.

‘I—’ Che stopped, torn.
The Mantis smiled sharply.

‘You are asking us to
trust you. In return, you will have to trust
us
. We
reserve the right, Cheerwell Maker, to take what action we will. If that means
that we are told to aid you, then you will receive our aid. If instead that
means that a Beetle-child who should not even be aware of our name disappears
from Sarn then that also shall happen, and in which case do you really think we
could not find you?’

‘I’m at the sign of the
Sworded Book,’ Che said. ‘But I tell you that not because of threats, but
because you’re right: somebody has to make the first move, with trust. I trust
Achaeos to have brought me to the . . .’ Just in time she swallowed the name
‘Arcanum’, ‘to the right people. And I trust the right people to consider
seriously that the Lowlands is no longer in the same position as this time last
year. And whether you’re in a College by the coast or in a city up a mountain,
that’s just as true.’

The other gamblers were
returning now, and Gaff began shuffling the cards.

‘We will speak with our
masters,’ Scelae told her. ‘No more than that.’

She was very nearly too
quick for it, Tynisa turning as she heard the faint scuffle, but the arrow
sliced across her shoulder nonetheless, making her yell with pain and shock. By
the same token she was very nearly too slow. So thin was the difference between
a clean escape and a fatal strike.

The archer was up on a
rooftop and Tynisa was already moving towards the building’s shadow to put her
out of sight. There were men bursting out on them, though, eight or so of a
varied and well-armed crew. The leader, a rangy halfbreed, had an axe already
raised behind his head and hurled it even as Tynisa spotted him, the weapon
spinning end over end towards Tisamon. The Mantis did not sway aside from it
but caught it in his left hand, the force of its impact spinning him on his
heel. Then the axe had left his hand, flying at an angle to embed itself in the
chest of the archer.

Tynisa’s rapier was now
in her hand and she fell into line behind it. The ancient weapon,
Mantis-crafted from before the revolution, took her straight at a
barrel-chested Beetle-kinden in chainmail. He swung his great mace at her,
flicking it through the air faster than she expected and then dragging it
across her approach on the backswing, forcing her to keep her distance. He had
a buckler shield in his off-hand and, when she drove towards him, he tried to
take her point with it. She turned her wrist and snaked the rapier past the
shield’s edge, gashing his arm and then dropping back as the mace swept over
once more.

There were two other men
shifting to either side of the mace-wielder. One was a Spider-kinden spearman,
his face painted with darts of white, and the other was the tall halfbreed
axe-thrower who held a second axe now, a two-handed piece. She gave ground
before them, watching their approach. She decided they were all skilled, but
not used to working with each other. She could exploit that.