Salute the Dark (57 page)

‘What will you do?’ Che asked her. She had done her best to make herself Stenwold’s right hand, since her return. Her mind was thus kept busy, because it was the only way
through the pain.

Taki shrugged. ‘All I want to do is fly my
Esca
. . .’

She had told Che all about the retaking of Solarno, and Che had felt a hollow pang when she heard that she would never see Nero again. Another name to add to the list of the fallen and the
missing. It was clear where Taki’s heart had gone, though.

Che had already spoken at length with one of the airfield artificers and with one of Stenwold’s colleagues at the College. She pursed her lips. ‘I have an idea, while you’re
here.’

Taki cocked an eyebrow at her.

‘After the war with the Wasps, everyone is thinking about the future, and it’s clear to everyone that flying machines are part of that. A big part, too. The Wasps took Tark by air.
We defended ourselves by air. There are artificers all over the Lowlands just waking up to the fact.’

Taki nodded, showing finally at least a mote of interest.

‘Well then, you Solarnese have been fighting in the air in a way we never did. Maybe it’s because of your Dragonfly neighbours. Here in the Lowlands we’ve been dragging our
feet, because fighting on the ground was always enough for the Ant-kinden. So you’re ahead of us, with your designs. Even that fixed-wing you brought here has people excited, and I know that
it isn’t . . .’

Taki nodded. ‘What are you trying to say, Che?’

‘What we’ve got here is a city full of very clever artificers,’ Che continued. ‘Any one of them would be more than happy to work with you – to design a new flier
for you. That way you’d save them ten years of trial and error. We’re not a naturally airborne race, we Beetles. We badly need what you can teach us.’ An idea struck Che suddenly.
‘And you know what else we need? Pilots. There are people all over the Lowlands who’d come here just to learn.’

The Fly-kinden was looking slightly alarmed by now. ‘Teaching? I don’t think I . . .’

‘Who better?’ Che insisted. ‘At least consider it. Uncle Sten could get you a place at the College. They’d create a whole new post for you, I’d bet on it. So at
least think about it.’

The other woman’s look was still cautious, but at least something had surfaced that hinted at the same Taki she had known in Solarno.

‘One other thing,’ Che said slowly. ‘If you’re now ambassador to the Lowlands, I think I already have an official appointment for you.’

‘Oh?’

‘We’re expecting a . . . special guest shortly. His airship’s on its way, due to be here any day now. If you’re here on behalf of Solarno, you should definitely be there
to meet him.’

The airship manoeuvred ponderously above the Collegium airfield. Looking up at it, Taki had to fight the urge to run for her flier, to take to the air and fight. Some quirk of
supply had produced the exact same blimp carrier that she remembered so vividly, even down to the four stripe-painted orthopters that roosted beneath its pontoons. She supposed that an important
Wasp envoy would inevitably travel well protected, but still . . .

There were only a few of them waiting there on the field itself, comprising Stenwold’s personal retinue. The great and the good of Collegium, and of Sarn and Seldis and the Ancient League,
had taken their stand closer to the walls of the city, with guards of honour and flags and musicians. For now it was just Stenwold and those few who had walked his road with him, or done his work:
namely Arianna, Che, Balkus and Sperra, Parops of Tark, Taki.

Veterans
, Che thought.
Survivors.
There were too many faces that should have still been there. She knew the same thought must be in everyone’s mind.

The Wasp airship finally lowered itself to where the ground crew could secure it. The hatch above was already opening as they rushed to wheel the steps over. From this distance, the man who
appeared could be any other Wasp-kinden, with his gold-edged black robes left open over his banded armour.

About half a dozen of them came out, trying to maintain proper military order whilst coming down the steep steps. In the end their leader lost patience and just opened his wings to touch down
the faster, so the descent of the others, too heavily armoured to follow suit, became an undignified scramble to catch up with him.

Stenwold stepped forwards, aware he had wanted it this way, this moment at least, before the ponderous bulk of the Collegium bureaucracy could heave itself into motion.

‘Welcome to Collegium,’ he said. ‘Is it . . . Regent, I should call you, or General?’

‘Formally it’s Regent-General,’ the Wasp replied, ‘but you can call me Thalric, since I know that titles coming from your mouth wouldn’t mean much anyway.’ He
turned to one of his followers. ‘Major Aagen, have the men stand down and our passenger sent for.’ Thalric looked older, Stenwold observed, and he wondered whether it was his
visitor’s incarceration by his own people or his being the consort of an Empress that did it.

‘Aagen will be our imperial ambassador to Collegium, at least as long as we need one,’ Thalric explained. ‘I named him so for two reasons. He understands machines, so maybe
he’ll understand you Beetle-kinden as well, and also he’s an honest man. I’m experimenting with good faith. I don’t know whether I’ll take to it, but we’ll
see.’

‘So you think there’s room for good faith?’

Thalric shrugged. ‘Probably not.’ He looked back up at his airship as Aagen returned with . . .

Stenwold felt his heart skip, just as he heard Che exclaim in surprise and delight. He glanced at Thalric, seeing the same hard-to-read expression the man had worn whilst a prisoner at
Collegium.

Stenwold rushed forwards just as the woman reached the ground, throwing his arms around her. ‘We thought you were dead,’ he said hoarsely. ‘We’d heard nothing. We thought
you were dead, Tynisa! Where have you been?’

She was now shaking in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder, and he realized she was weeping, desperately trying to speak. He held her at arm’s length but she would still not meet his
eyes, and eventually he made out her words.

‘I’m so sorry, Stenwold. I couldn’t save him.’

She had something in her hands, two metal tokens, and it was a moment before he recognized the sword-and-circle badges. One was her own, the other . . . The other was the badge that Tisamon had
not felt himself fit to wear when he left Collegium. The message was clear.

Stenwold felt as though he had been holding his breath for tendays, in anticipation of this moment. Things left unknown but long suspected had fallen into place, ends tied up.
So, he is
dead
, and it occurred to Stenwold that, of the little band of fools who had set out to fight the Empire all those years ago, he himself was the only survivor. Marius and Atryssa were long gone,
Nero and Tisamon so recently, and only he had lived to see their work even half done.

‘Thank you,’ he said to Thalric. Behind him, Che and Tynisa were embracing, not-quite-sisters reunited.

Thalric shrugged. ‘It will never be believed of me, but, left to my own devices I’m an honourable man.’

‘How are things in the Empire – what’s left of it at least?’ Stenwold turned to guide Thalric towards all the waiting delegates and Assemblers.

‘We progress,’ Thalric told him. ‘Seda and her advisors have already managed to convince almost half the Empire that an empress can rule just as well as an emperor. The central
cities remain loyal. The South-Empire has disintegrated entirely, a mass of generals and governors and colonels who each of them want to rule the world. We’re taking it back piece by piece. I
don’t know what you’ve heard about the West-Empire . . .’

‘I’ve heard enough to know it’s not the West-Empire.’

Thalric smiled at that. ‘We have given a lot of employment to the map-makers recently, haven’t we? No, Myna and Szar and Maynes have made this Three-City Alliance
nonsense.’

‘And Helleron has redeclared its independence, I hear – whilst retaining close ties to the Empire, of course,’ Stenwold recalled cynically.

‘Whatever pays the most,’ Thalric agreed. ‘When we start looking west again, none of that will make any difference.’

‘You think it will come to that?’ Stenwold asked unhappily.

Thalric stopped abruptly. ‘I will have to become the diplomat in just a moment, and tell pleasant lies to people. Stenwold, you know there will be war again, between the Empire and the
Lowlands. We will all put our names to the truce today, the Treaty of Gold, and everyone will rejoice, but every man who signs it will know that they are writing in water, and that the ripples will
be gone soon enough. The truce is convenience, until one of us is ready for war again, and we both know it. I’d like to hope that it doesn’t come in either of our lifetimes.’

Stenwold looked at him and nodded briefly. ‘I believe you in that. Have I misjudged you?’

Thalric shook his head. ‘Not that I noticed.’

Stenwold moved on, then, to join with the other great men of his people, leaving Thalric and his retinue waiting for their formal introduction. Whoever had decreed that the peace should be
signed outside the walls of Collegium had not reckoned for the wind today, and vitally important documents were being hurriedly weighted down with stones.

‘Thalric?’ Che approached him almost tentatively. He had been many things to her, after all, comrade and captor and fellow prisoner, undoubted enemy, even doubtful friend.

‘Cheerwell Maker.’ He gave an odd smile, as he looked on her, and she suddenly wondered if he were thinking
What if . . .
while contemplating a world without the Wasp Empress
or the war.

‘I owe you a great deal,’ she said. ‘But that’s all right, because you owe me as well, from before. I’ve done the tallying, and I think I’m in debt to you
still, overall. At the end, you did a lot. For Myna.’

She saw him go to make a flippant comment, to shrug it all off, but something dried up the words in his mouth, and instead he just gazed at her sadly. He had told her once how he had a wife back
in the Empire, and now imperial writ had decreed a new one for him, and anyway she had felt throughout that the pairings of the Wasp-kinden were merely intended for progeny and convenience. Yet
there was regret in that glance of his, a fond regret from a man too pragmatic to act on it.

She hugged him briefly, feeling his armour cold against her, and then let go. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and then they were walking onwards – with treaties waiting to be signed,
history to be made.

* * *

The workshop’s owner ducked back into the room, under the sloping ceiling. A garret room and, after the machines had been moved in, precious little space to move
about.

‘This is all I can spare you,’ he explained to the solemn young man who followed him. ‘You make good, then maybe you’ll get something better. You waste my time,
you’ll regret it, understand?’ His expression was all suspicion and dislike, but it was free of prejudice – because he was a halfbreed, just like Totho was.

Chasme was a city of halfbreeds. Since arriving the day before, Totho had never seen so many. One out of any two of this ramshackle place’s occupants was of mixed blood: Ant and Bee,
Spider and Dragonfly, Solarnese Soldier Beetle and Fly-kinden, or a bastard mingling of any combination. A man like Totho attracted no stares.

Oh, he had noticed that many of them were slaves, and many others menials or factory workers. It was not a universal rule, though. Chasme was fluid, not fixed like in the Empire or the
Lowlands.

The garret workshop was better than he had hoped. Chasme was a little jewel of civilization on a barbarous shore, powered by the need of Princep Exilla to match the aerial and naval might of
Solarno. It was therefore a fortuitous, sheltered little backwater for an artificer to work in.

‘I’d better see something from you before the end of the month,’ the owner warned him. ‘Or you’re on the street.’

‘I’ll show you now,’ Totho said. ‘As a down payment. Just bring me a target mannequin or whatever else you use here.’

The man studied him, narrow-eyed. He himself was of such a mixed ancestry that there was no deciphering it. A flick of his wrist sent one of his slaves off, to return an awkward minute later
with a stuffed leather torso on a stand, a mess of patches and rips.

Totho gave a nod for the slave to position it, and he unslung his latest prototype, pumping up the pressure as he did so with ratcheting winches of the handle. It was his showpiece: too delicate
for war-work but it made a pretty display.

‘I give you the future,’ he announced, and emptied the snapbow at the dummy, shearing off everything above the navel, even the post that supported it.

The workshop owner said nothing for a long time, to his credit. Totho could almost see money being counted in the man’s eyes. Small concerns, petty profits, but they would outgrow this
place soon enough. There would shortly be a revolution here in Chasme. Progress, which had stumbled at the end of the Wasps’ war, would begin its march once more.

‘I’ll leave you to your work,’ said the owner, almost reverently, before turning to go. He stepped aside quickly as Totho’s companion came in, hooded and robed.

‘This will do, for a start,’ Totho said. ‘And they’ve manpower and materials enough for us here in Chasme. I thought we’d complete the arm first, and then . .
.’

Drephos tugged his hood down, one-handed. ‘And then the future,’ he suggested. ‘And then the world.’

* * *

It became aware of itself between the trees, awakening to agonized existence shot through with thorns and briars.

Where—?

Around it, the forest was twisted and dark, each tree knotted and diseased and forever dying, never quite dead. It knew this place, immediately, instinctively. There was no mistaking it.

The Darakyon
.

Yet this was not the true Darakyon, that brooding forest east of Helleron that, for centuries, had turned back or consumed any travellers foolish enough to breach its borders. The true Darakyon
lay untenanted now, its ghosts faded from between its tortured boles, the sun breaking in through its matted canopy. The 500-year-old work of the magicians who had blighted it with their hubris had
been undone.