Empire in Black and Gold (42 page)

I woke it up. I caught its attention.
A horrible sense of inevitability had caught him.
Better to be killed by the Wasps.
But it was too late to make that choice. The trees around him were vast and twisted, their bark creased and stretched tight about their bulging trunks. There were thorns and briars everywhere, whole nests of them. Wherever he turned, only the path leading into the centre of the wood seemed clear.

He heard a scream behind him, and he stopped running. He did not want to turn round, but something, some morbid curiosity, drew him to do it. There was enough of the forest to obscure his view, but the Wasps’ voices were now rising in panic, in horror. He heard, ‘
What is it?’
and ‘
Kill it! Kill it before—
’ For just a moment he saw a shape, one that was not quite insect, or human, or plant, but possessed thorn-studded killing arms that rose and fell with lethal speed.

Then there was quiet, and he thought of all the blood that was soaking into the soil of the Darakyon, and he closed his dark-seeing eyes and just waited.

And the Darakyon waited, and when he opened his eyes there was no monster, no terrifying chimaera rising before him. There was a darkness, though, between the trees, that his eyes could not penetrate. There were shadows, and the shadows were shapes, and once he had understood that, he did his best not to look at them.

‘What do you want with me?’ he asked, his voice little more than a rattle in his throat, and still they waited, until he realized that whatever it was was posing the same question to him. He had been so bold as to catch its notice, and it wanted to know why.

Nobody has spoken with the Darakyon for a hundred years.

His people forbad it, and for good reason. Time and dark deeds had clawed away at this place, festering in it for centuries.

There was a thought that was coming to him now, because he was standing, alive, in this ever-dying place, and it was waiting for his words.
Nobody has spoken with the Darakyon for a hundred years, so what do they know – what do they really know – about what this place might do?
The tales of his people regarding this place were all horrors to scare the children with, but the one thing they agreed on was that the Darakyon was
strong
.

I came here for a purpose. It was while looking for Che that I felt the forest awake. I am a weak seer, unequal to the task of finding her, but I am standing at the heart of the greatest magic I have ever known.

The night had lost its reality. He was outside time, outside all rules. In that moment he felt that he could accomplish anything, that he could overcome the losses of his race and turn back the revolution. and who knew what else?

‘Give me your power,’ he told the trees. ‘Loan me your power this night.’ And he reached forth to take it.

And the Darakyon answered him back,
Who asks?
in a voice that was like a dry chorus of a hundred voices. He could not tell whether it came from the trees themselves or from between them, but the sound of it froze him. A voice like dry leaves and the dead husks of things, and the passage of five hundred years.

Who would draw upon what we have hoarded?
gusted the voice of the Darakyon, and Achaeos could barely speak. His breath plumed in the air, as the temperature plummeted instantly away. His great pride, that a moment ago had seemed to hold the world in its palm, had withered within him, like leaves when the winter comes.

‘I am Achaeos, a seer of the ancient paths of—’ he stuttered out.

Hist! You are no more than a neophyte. What could persuade us to lend you our strength?

He fought in vain to summon an answer, and then they said,
What could save you from us?

‘I am a seer . . .’ he tried again, but there was laughter now, and it was worse than the voice itself had been.

None would miss you. You are a stray leaf fallen far from your tree, little neophyte.

He felt himself trembling from fear and cold both. His arms were still outstretched, but the power beyond his fingertips was so vast and so
other
that he could no more compel it than he could command the sun.

Do you think the bearer of the sign can still ward you from us, you who have conjured us into wakefulness and come into our heart?

‘No . . .’ He choked, his fear was so high in his throat that he could barely speak. ‘I only sought . . . I was only trying to find . . .’

Did you think these sacrifices would glut us in blood, little Neophyte?

Sacrifices? ‘The Wasps . . . Yes, they are yours,’ he stammered out. A dry crackle of laughter echoed around him.

And the other two, who now stumble within our borders, seeking a way out? The two slaves – are they also ours?

It was a moment before Achaeos understood, and when he did the temptation was painful. Buy the Darakyon with the blood of Stenwold and Totho, a Beetle and a half-breed?
If it were only that ill-favoured creature Totho . . .
but Stenwold was
her
family. More, Stenwold was the only one who could control the Mantis, and the Mantis surely would
know
.

‘They are not for you!’ he choked out, and that rustling laughter came again.

Such demands you make, who have so little power to stop us. Such dictation of what we may and may not do. What will you buy their lives with, little Neophyte? What entreaties have you for us?

He felt his stomach lurch at this abrupt change of direction. ‘I just wanted to . . . to find her.’ It sounded pitiful, even to him.

We shall see what you would do.

The shapes between the trees shifted, and something infinitely cold seared through the inside of his head from front to back, hissing like acid. His mouth snapped open, unable even to scream. Bent backwards, choking, he fell to the ground, his limbs pulled in, every joint locked.

And then it was gone, and he was left gasping, shuddering, lying on his side amongst the tangled roots of the Darakyon.

You are pathetic
, the phantom voice told him.
You will not even own to why you seek what you seek. But we have seen. We have seen all, and the pain that you will suffer for the road you take. We cannot be commanded to lend you our power.

Achaeos lay and trembled, crouched into a ball, and waited for the axe to fall.

But we have seen through you, little neophyte.
The shapes between the trees were more distinct now, though he knew that he did not wish to see them clearly.
You show spirit, and we have always valued spirit, courage. Always.

In that last word, lingering over it, there was contained a window opening onto a centuries-old loss, a betrayal, the end of an era. He remembered how the Mantis-kinden had dwelled here and that, although they lived here no longer, yet they were not gone.

We cannot be compelled, by you or your betters, little neophyte, but we shall lend you what you ask. This forges a debt between us. We shall remember it.

He opened his mouth to protest that he did not want their gifts, but it was too late. He had asked and he was given what he asked for. The cold that before had shrieked in his skull now hammered into his chest, infused him. He keened with it, burned with it. It shattered its way into him.

He had so little time. On his back, in the bowels of that terrible place, he called out, not with his own voice, but with the vicarious power that filled him.

Cheerwell!

It was as though a hand, chill as ice, had placed its fingers on her forehead, and Che awoke, or tried to wake. Something caught her, like a spider’s web, halfway between sleep’s abyss and the conscious heights of the waking world.

A voice was speaking to her.
Cheerwell!
A voice she should know from somewhere, and yet supported by a vast chorus of whispers, and all of them also saying her name.

‘What . . . what is it? Who . . . ?’ She knew she did not speak, and yet her words went out.

Listen to me. You must hear me.
And again that half-familiar tone that she could not place.

‘I hear you.’

Do not fear, Cheerwell, for I am coming for you, to repay what is owed. I am coming to free you.

‘I don’t understand . . .’ She felt as though she was on some rushing, surging wave, being whisked away beyond her own control. She had no sense of place or time. The darkness was thick and absolute.

You must tell me where you are, Cheerwell
, said the voice – or voices – to her.
Where are you? Let me find you.

And at last the concept came to her and she trawled her mind, feeling even as she did that she was rising towards the waking world where things like this could not be.

‘Myna. Going to Myna.’

And, even as she spoke, she felt a withdrawing, and she was suddenly rushing on towards wakefulness, pelting pell-mell for it, and at the last moment the owner of that voice came to her.

Achaeos!

‘Achaeos!’ And she woke with her own voice and his name ringing in her ears.

She opened her eyes on the storage bay that was their cell. Salma was sitting cross-legged across from her and his eyes were open also, as though just this moment he had been snatched from sleep. The Butterfly, Grief in Chains, lay on her side, but she too had pushed herself up onto one elbow, her white eyes wide. ‘Night brother . . .’ she said quietly.

‘Che, are you all right?’ Salma asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Che found she was panting heavily, as though she had been running. ‘What just happened?’

‘There was something here,’ Salma said definitely.

‘Something . . . what? Why did she . . . ?’ She turned to the Butterfly. ‘Why did you say what you just said.’

Grief in Chains just stared at her.

‘I felt . . . Salma, tell me!’ Che pleaded.

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I don’t know enough, and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.’

‘Are you going to tell me it was . . . It was just a dream, that’s all.’

Salma’s habitual smile found his face at last. ‘Of course.’

Grief in Chains sat up fully. ‘You were touched,’ she said. ‘Darkness touched you.’ She seemed visibly upset. She had spoken very little during the previous day’s journeying, but when Salma reached a hand out to her she had clung to it.

‘It was just a . . . a dream,’ Che insisted.
A bad dream or a good one?
she asked herself, and received no answer.

Abruptly someone banged on the hatch. ‘You keep it quiet down in there!’ barked one of the two soldiers Thalric had brought along. ‘You don’t want to wake the captain up, that’s for sure.’

Che closed her mouth and then frowned. ‘Wake? It’s . . . it’s already day . . .’

‘Day?’ Salma asked her, puzzled.

‘It’s light.’

‘Che, it’s dark.’

She goggled at him. She could see him so clearly. She could see Grief clearly, and also the bare walls of their prison. The light was strange, though. It was like strong moonlight, leached of colour. Even Grief’s ever-changing skin and hair were just a motley of greys to her.

Salma pointed upwards. Lining two walls were a row of slits, and when she had bedded down for the night there had been a faint light there still, as the dusk passed into darkness.

The light was not coming from there, for they were no brighter than the rest of the room. The strange light was not coming from anywhere.

‘Salma,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I’ve found the Art – the Ancestor Art. Or else it’s found me. Salma, how did
you
first know that you could . . . ?’

‘I could jump into the air and stay there,’ he said blandly, but she was too excited to care about his sarcasm, because she could see clearly and it was still night. This was a Beetle Art, she knew, though not a common one, and why should it not finally manifest in this closed box of a place?

And yet there were others who could see in the dark from their very births, needing no Art for it, who were truly creatures of darkness and the night. She had met one recently and his blood had been on her hands.

Night brother
, the Butterfly had said, and she had dreamt the voice of Achaeos, remembered somehow from that strange, brief encounter.

She leant back against the wall and discovered that there was a patina of frost slowly melting across it. Yet the night outside had been overcast, not chill at all.

They crept back towards the camp before dawn, Tisamon padding silently in front, and Tynisa trailing behind. For her it had been an unreal night. Tisamon was a hard man to keep up with, and yet she had shadowed him all the way to Asta. Together they had passed through the ring of sentries, dodging the great lamp, the beam of which passed sometimes across the temporary streets of the muster town. All the while there had been not one word spoken between them. Tisamon had, at first, barely seemed to know that she was there, but as the night had progressed, something had grown between them, some wordless commonality. His stealthy poise and tread had slowly changed to include her in his progress. Where he had once looked both ways, silent in the shadows of a storehouse or barracks, now he would look left while she looked right. He had eased into a trust of her, a confidence that she was up to the task, and all still without ever acknowledging her. Then had come the slave pits, and he had stepped back and kept watch while she, who knew the pair, had sought out Che and Salma.