Dragonfly Falling (33 page)

‘Maxin, you cannot
really believe this. It goes against all reason,’ the Emperor protested, though
in his eyes Maxin saw not fear or contempt, but a hunger.
If
only it were true
, those eyes said,
what could we
do? What could we not do?

‘I have learned that
there are things in this world that cannot be dismissed so easily. In your
grandfather’s father’s time, Majesty, our own people had their own strange
beliefs. One of which was that we would one day unite and rule the world. Who
then would have believed it?’

‘But this is different,
Maxin.’

‘Only in the type of
belief it requires, Majesty.’

‘So you wish to examine
our sister?’ Alvdan said, coming back to face the Mosquito. ‘And that will
discomfort her. It will upset her.
Good
. We are
growing to appreciate this plan. But then you say you need more? You do not
have here at your disposal all that you need.’

‘It is indeed so, great
lord. I have not the power, within my own being, for a work so great as this.’

‘So your charlatanry
needs fuel to make it go, does it?’

‘I do not recognize such
terms, great one,’ Uctebri said, with unctuous humility, ‘but I am sure you are
correct.’

‘Your magic box – that
is what you need us to retrieve for you?’ the Emperor added derisively. ‘If it
were so effective, would it be so easy to locate – or even possible to take?’

Uctebri gave a strange
whistling sigh and pulled his enveloping hood halfway back to scratch at his
head. His red eyes flicked from Alvdan to the general. ‘Ruins and ash, Your
Imperial Majesty, are all that remains of my people’s power, but those who
wrought our downfall are now little better. The old days are gone, and shall
not come again. Those that were once enthroned on high are cast down, and that
which was venerated is spurned in the dust.’ His slender fingers intertwined.
‘This thing that lords and Skryres and princes would have fought for, when its
value was known, is now a curiosity in the hands of the ignorant: ignorant men
who profess knowledge, and yet know nothing of what they possess. But it has
power yet – power that I can use for your benefit, worshipful Majesty.’

‘And if that power is
used to our detriment, you know that we shall drain from you each drop of blood
that you have fed on, creature,’ Alvdan told him. ‘Succeed and you shall find
yourself most honoured amongst our slaves, but do not dream of betrayal.’

‘I am your prisoner . .
. your slave,’ the Mosquito repeated, ‘and you may destroy me with a word, now
or later, or when my tasks are done. I am most dependent on your good will,
mighty one. When I have proved myself by this great service, you shall think
kindly of me, I hope, and know that I can do yet more.’

‘Perhaps,’ Alvdan said
doubtfully. ‘I have sent the orders, and they should arrive at the city of
Helleron even now. Do you know Helleron? We have no free agents nearer your
toy, but Helleron has its store of clever folk who do our bidding. The order
has gone out to them. If this Box of the Shadow exists, and is where you say it
is, they shall capture it for us.’

They brought the lady
Seda in within two bells, as Capitas told time, dragged without warning from
her own more sumptuous prison. She tried to fight free when she saw the
emaciated, robed figure awaiting her, but the guard forced her in without
difficulty, bound her to a chair easily, and now stood behind her, always a
shadow in the edge of her vision. The Mosquito-kinden squinted at her, long
fingers touching at one another, then parting.

‘Light and darkness,’
said Uctebri the Sarcad. He moved about the room almost hesitantly. ‘That is what
life is about: all existence strung between those two poles. Or that is the way
that we all used to see it.’ Eventually he made his mind up. ‘Shutter the
lanterns,’ he said, and the guard looked at him curiously.

‘Sir?’ Uctebri was a
slave still, with no rank as yet, but he was a man who had spoken to the
Emperor and so the guard felt it wise to address him thus.

‘I cannot do it,’ the
Mosquito said irritably. ‘Draw the shutters almost all the way. It is too
bright in here for what I plan. I trust this will not discomfort you overmuch,
Your Highness.’

It was already gloomy in
there and, from her vantage point, Seda could see Uctebri as a dark-robed shape
that grew less and less distinct as the guard tugged on the cords that
controlled the lamps’ shutters.

‘You needn’t call me
that,’ she remarked drily. ‘Nobody else does.’

The last shutter was now
drawn nearly closed. She heard the guard carefully finding his way back behind
her chair, felt his hand brush her shoulder as he checked her presence.

‘And yet I do,’ the
Mosquito’s voice came. When he moved she could just make him out. When he
stopped he disappeared in the dark. ‘It is the correct form of address for a
lady of your rank, I believe?’

She heard a scratching
sound from his approximate direction. ‘What are you doing, Mosquito-kinden?’

‘Drawing. Marking my
notes,’ emerged his voice. ‘Light and darkness, great lady, our whole world is
built between them. There are things that can be accomplished in the dark of
the moon which are quite impossible at noontime. But it is not the hour that
matters, only the light. If I can make it midnight within your mind, then there
is nothing I cannot do, but if you have the will to keep the sun burning, then
you are quite proof against me. But that art is long lost amongst your people.’

She heard the soft
shuffle of his feet, her ears sharpening as she abandoned any reliance on her
eyes. When she had come here, she had expected further taunts and jibes from
her brother, but he had not been present. Instead there had been this chair,
which she recognized from visits elsewhere. They kept chairs like this in
prisons, for questioning. There had been none of the other apparatus she
associated with the interrogator’s art, but she sensed that the Mosquito’s
desires needed none.

He was very close when
he spoke again. ‘It escapes the attention of your own kinden – as of other
upstart races – that all the great powers of the Days of Lore could see in
darkness, to a greater or lesser degree. The Mantids, the Spiders, and of
course, best of all, the Moth-kinden and my own people. To know the dark, and
not to fear it, was to control the world.’

He was now right at her
elbow.

‘And then, of course,
the great old night ended, and another kind of sun dawned. A revolutionary sun
of machines and artifice that burned us all back into our hollows.’

‘How bitter you must
feel,’ she said without sympathy.

‘Bitter?’ A croaky
little laugh. ‘My people had already lost our chance for greatness. We were
never many, but we had power and a yearning to use it. We had secrets that the
Skryres of the Moths have never learned, and some that they might have, but
that they deemed us evil, and made war on us to wipe us out, along with
everything we knew.’

She gave a little squeak
of panic as his pale, cold fingers brushed her cheek, his nails unexpectedly
sharp.

‘And we are few now, so
very few,’ he continued. ‘And yet they did not completely succeed, for that
knowledge is still with us – and your brother is very, very interested in it.’

She had the sense of his
eyes fixed on her. They had brought her here unprepared from her chamber, and
she wore only a silken gown to keep the night out, and now the night was
irresistible. She felt the touch of his fingertips drifting idly down her neck.

‘You . . .’ From
somewhere she marshalled a little courage. ‘This is an elaborate scheme of
yours, Sarcad, simply to inflict yourself on a woman. Are your own kind so very
few, after all?’

His rattling laugh came
again. ‘Forgive me, Highness. I am an old man, but appetites die slowly in my
tribe and you Wasp-kinden are a comely enough people – for an Apt race. You,
especially, are a remarkably pleasing specimen of Wasp-kinden womanhood.’

‘And this is what it is
all about, is it?’ She tugged at the straps of the chair, which was a futile
enough struggle. ‘Or is this just some chance gift to you?’

‘Fear not, Your
Highness. Your chastity is quite safe from me. The appetites I refer to are not
sexual.’

‘Blood? Your people
really drink the blood of others?’

‘As our namesakes do,’
he said, ‘and I consider myself something of a connoisseur. Royal blood,
especially. Although I understand it is in short supply. Your father died not
young but not old, yes?’

‘That is true.’

‘And there was suspicion
at that?’ He was moving around the back of the chair, she sensed.

‘I would not pursue that
line of enquiry, Uctebri, lest the guard report your words.’

‘Ah yes, the guardsman.
Perhaps you could call on him.’

She frowned in the
darkness. ‘For what purpose?’

‘As one ever calls on
unknown powers, simply to see if they will come.’

‘You have . . . ?’

‘He hears nothing, my
lady, because I have put a magic on him. He sees nothing, and he hears nothing.
Light and darkness, and of these two, darkness has the power. Your brother
feared your father was killed. He feared even more being blamed for that death,
and therefore no investigation, no suggestion was ever allowed to be raised.
Your people’s empire is young, its succession untried. Your brother decided
that to secure his position he would take drastic measures. He was advised in
this by Colonel Maxin – as he then was.’

‘Maxin killed my
brothers and sisters,’ Seda confirmed. There was still no sound from the guard.
She knew it was impossible but, in this darkness, with that scratchy voice
behind her, she found she could believe Uctebri’s claim to magic entirely. ‘He
only left me alive because, so long as I live, he knows exactly where the
threat will come from. If I die, any number of others might rise to be his chief
enemy – or all combine against him. My brother feels so secure on his throne
that people say he ties himself to it sometimes, lest he slide off in a moment
of weakness.’

Uctebri chuckled. ‘And
your brother has many concubines but, I understand, no children. Not even
bastards. Remarkable.’

‘He has all of his issue
killed at birth,’ she said, ‘or so I have heard. Bastards have no standing, but
even so he will not take the risk of one growing up to be used against him.’

‘And no lawful mate. No
legitimate issue. A man concerned about his own longevity, should any child
grow to manhood. You are his prisoner, but no more than he is his own. Ah, the
foolishness of it all.’ His voice seemed to be drifting further away. ‘Still,
you must see why he has, in the end, come to consider my proposal.’

‘And what is that?’ she
asked. ‘What is your proposal? You may as well tell me. What am I able to do
about it?’

‘I have told your
brother I can allow him to live far beyond the few years normally allowed to
your kinden. Perhaps even for ever? An immortal Emperor of the Wasp-kinden, for
ever wise and loved by his subjects. He rather likes the idea, however much he
doubts its possibility. He likes it enough to have me try.’

‘And should he ever
believe he is immortal, I will die that very day,’ admitted Seda.

‘Ah, alas, your demise
would come some moments sooner than his ascension.’ He was now speaking right
in her ear. ‘My people understand blood, for blood is the darkness within our
veins. Blood has power. Especially the blood of our kin. Sister and brother,
close as close, Your Highness.’

She stiffened as she
felt something sharp at her neck, like the razor edge of a tiny blade. She
closed her eyes, clenching her fists, and willed it over soon.

There was the slightest
arrow of pain, a tiny cut, and then the blade was gone, and for a short while
Uctebri remained quiet. Then he said, ‘You have quite the sweetest blood I have
tasted for some considerable time, great lady.’

‘My brother is mad to
believe you,’ she spat at him. ‘You are mad to tempt him with it. After living
in fear for eight years I am to be killed on this lunatic’s errand?’

‘Oh that
is
a shame, Your Highness, that you should believe it
impossible.’ Uctebri whispered, still at her very shoulder. ‘You see, I have my
own doubts about your brother’s patronage.’

With a start she felt
the buckles over her wrists loosen, first one and then the other, and after
that he was crouching at her ankles, still speaking. ‘I rather suspect that he
would be a dangerous man to have around for ever. Or even for much longer. My
concern, you see, is for my own kinden and their future, and I cannot say that
it would be best served by the Emperor Alvdan. He strikes me as a man neither
gracious nor grateful towards those who have helped him ascend to power.’

She was free of the
chair now, so at any moment she could leap from it, but she stayed there,
transfixed by his words. ‘Just what are you saying?’

‘Treason,’ he explained,
and she knew he was standing right before the chair, as if a supplicant. ‘Or it
would be if I were actually a subject of His Imperial Majesty. You may quibble
that I am his prisoner, but ask yourself how long that state of affairs might
persist if I did not wish it. No, rather the crown is currently serving me, in
requisitioning some piece of desiderata that I have long coveted. What I am
proposing is that, whilst I am quite capable of delivering what I promise, the
crown of immortality would find a fitter home on another brow than your
brother’s.’

She did not believe, for
a moment, that he could do any such thing. He was a prisoner, and was
bargaining for his life with these dreams of longevity. It could even be a trap
set by her brother, save that he needed neither excuse nor pretext to have her
killed. But possibly, just possibly, it meant that Uctebri the Sarcad
represented both an ally and an opportunity.