Blood of the Mantis (24 page)

‘We shall not remain within your Empire long,’ said one of the Skryres, ‘Or at least so the majority of our futures show us. Either we shall be free or we shall be destroyed. The future you propose is but a thin thread in the weaving.’

‘State your terms,’ the female Skryre demanded.

Tegrec spread his hands. ‘I see no reason to impose any more on you than I must. A small garrison, for what more would be needed amid such a peaceful folk; some pittance of taxation too, for the Emperor is greedy for such things. Beside that, nothing needs to change. Continue to rule yourselves and your lives as you always have.’

‘As we always have,’ echoed one of the Skryres, in a sick tone of voice. ‘You have no idea of
always
, Wasp-kinden.’

‘Then
teach
me,’ Tegrec said, standing up at last. ‘I have come with an open mind. I have come thirsty for knowledge. I know you have taken students from other kinden before, though never from mine, but there has never been a Wasp like me before. Teach me, then, and make me one of you, and in return I shall shield you from the Empire. If you doubt me, then look within me – as I know you can, as I myself have even done with others.’

They exchanged glances, and then one asked Xaraea, ‘Your spies, your agents, what do they say?’

‘There are no certainties,’ she said. ‘But what choice have we?’

‘No sooner do I discover that I have in my house an individual of culture and fame,’ Domina Genissa exclaimed, ‘than he is maimed by the Crystal Standard’s ghastly mob!’ She had Nero settled down comfortably in a bedroom that was clearly intended for much grander folk, and her own personal Spider-kinden physician had cleaned and dressed his wound, and then bound a sweet-smelling poultice to it.

‘An individual of culture and fame, Domina?’ Taki enquired doubtfully.

‘When I first saw his face, my dear, I had just an inkling that it was known to me,’ Genissa declared. ‘I curse my weakness of memory, that the answer was so slow in coming.’

Taki and Che exchanged glances, each as blank as the next.

‘Why look above you, dear ones. Look over the door.’

They did and, after a moment Nero chuckled. ‘Oh, neatly done. Very neat.’

There was a painting executed in a single long band above the doorway, a scene that Che took to represent the Days of Lore, the ‘Bad Old Days’ as the Beetles sometimes termed them. Here were Spider ladies and their lords reclining, scantily clad or sometimes not clad at all, eating grapes and sipping wine from golden goblets, surrounded by coiling vines and leafy trees, as though all this luxury was simply to be had on the bough for the asking. Mantis-kinden in archaic carapace breastplates duelled with rapiers and claws, and to one side she saw a Moth-kinden, a young man that Achaeos might almost have posed for. The thought made her sad, wishing him here with her.

She peered closely, then, to see the Shadow Box he had spoken of, but of course there was nothing of it. This was no ancient painting but a modern artist’s romanticized portrayal. Nero’s own, apparently.

‘Yours, Sieur Nero?’ Taki guessed, a wary respect in her voice.

‘Look towards the bottom left,’ he suggested.

There were other kinden depicted in the picture, although the eye was carefully led away from them. Huddled in the corners Che saw Ant-kinden hauling casks of wine, Beetle-kinden hammering steel at a forge, Fly-kinden bearing platters of meats. One of the Fly servants was facing outwards, looking over his shoulder and straight out of the painting: a bald man with a knuckly face.

‘Better than any signature,’ Nero explained with satisfaction.

‘But you said you’d never been to Solarno before,’ Taki said, genuinely thrown. ‘That’s painted right onto the wall.’

‘That’s because it’s just a copy,’ the artist replied, grinning. ‘The original’s in Siennis, but someone from here must have gone travelling there, and liked it enough to commission this copy. And it’s a good reproduction, don’t get me wrong.’

Genissa’s face had fixed slightly at first when he spoke, but now she warmed again. ‘I hope you are not offended, Sieur Nero.’

‘Flattered only, Domina.’

‘Bella, please. Bella Genissa. It would please me.’

Behind her back, Taki raised her eyebrows at Che. ‘I take it you and Sieur Nero have much to discuss, Domina. A commission perhaps?’

‘A commission indeed,’ Genissa said happily. ‘When he is fit for it. Until then I would hear of his business in the Spiderlands, for I am sure we must have mutual acquaintances.’

‘If it pleases you, I’ll take Bella Cheerwell out to see more of our city, Domina.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Genissa waved them away, and Taki tugged at Che’s sleeve.

Nero gave her a quick nod, as if to confirm:
I know what I’m doing here.
Che sent him an encouraging smile back, and then followed where Taki was leading.

Once they were out of earshot of the bedroom, and Taki had taken a precautionary look around for eavesdroppers, the Fly woman said, ‘Don’t be fooled by any of that performance.’

‘By Genissa?’

‘She loves that act, all the flowers and fluff, but don’t forget she’s the head of the Destiavel, and you can’t be that without all your knives good and sharp.’

‘She’s your employer,’ Che noted.

‘Don’t think I’m not grateful for it. Her money keeps my
Esca
in the air. She’s also much better than a lot of the family heads. Still, she’s no fool and right now she assumes your friend is a spy from the Spiderlands. That’s what she’s really talking to him about, though he may not guess it.’

‘Nero’s smarter than he looks, as well,’ Che pointed out loyally.

‘That can’t be too hard. So, I’m going to show you more of the city. Do you know the best way of seeing Solarno?’

When Che shook her head, she continued: ‘From the air.’

‘You mean . . . from an airship? Or an orthopter?’

‘That’s just exactly what I mean. I’m sure I can find some pilot with a two-man who owes me a favour.’

‘Actually . . . I can pilot a flier.’ Ever since seeing Taki duel with the pirates over the Exalsee, the thought had been with Che. ‘Not well enough for fighting or anything, but I can pilot a flying machine.’

Taki looked doubtful. ‘Well, I could commandeer you something from the house hangers, but . . .’

‘I’d be really, really careful with it.’

‘I’m more worried about you, yourself. If I got into real trouble, I could always bail out and fly, but—’

‘I
can
fly,’ Che insisted and, when Taki still looked doubtful, she let her wings flare a little, a shimmer passing across her shoulders.

‘Sink me,’ Taki swore. ‘You really
are
a foreigner, right enough. The locals certainly can’t, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t know how they ever dare take to the air. Bella Cheerwell, you have yourself a flying machine. This may all work out better than I’d hoped.’

The
Stormcry
seemed very fat and ungainly next to Taki’s
Esca Volenti
, which comparison Che supposed was fitting enough. It – or
she
, as Taki introduced the machine – was a block-bodied fixed-wing with broad pinions that each bore a propeller, with an extra prop mounted above the pilot for good measure, ahead of a box-kite tail. The rear of the pilot’s seat touched up against a compact little steam engine that drove all three, and Che suspected it would get particularly hot in just a short space of time. The entirety of it was built of light wooden planks, brass bound. Che had to admit that out here beyond the edge of civilization they seemed to know their artificing, at least when it pertained to flying machines.

‘She’s a reliable old girl,’ Taki said. ‘Not local, mind: she’s out of the Chasme foundries across the water. We captured her from some Princep Exilla pirates years ago.’

Che had looked over the controls, which had been devised to be as simple as possible. ‘I can fly this,’ she declared, sounding far more confident than she felt.

‘Well, let’s go for a spin, then,’ Taki declared for the benefit of all the Solarnese engineers and servants within earshot. Hopping up on a crate of spare parts, she added, whispering in Che’s ear, ‘Just follow where I lead. I’m taking you somewhere special.’

‘But I thought we were—’

‘Never mind,’ Taki hissed. ‘You want to know about Solarno and the Wasps? Well, then you can come along with me. One and only chance for the truth. You with me on that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then climb on in, and they’ll start her up for you.’

Once she had been wheeled out of the hangar onto the airstrip the
Esca Volenta
practically leapt into the air in a sudden flurry of wings, dancing into a long curve of waiting as Che’s new machine was pushed next out into the sun.

They flung the lower propellers and she pumped the fuel frantically with a foot-pedal, feeling them catch and start spinning, with the third engine firing a moment later. After that the propellers were dragging the
Stormcry
forwards, hustling the machine towards the edge of the airstrip. The strip was high up, on Solarno’s top level, well above the bulk of the city, and Che belatedly realized that if something went wrong she would come crashing down through someone’s roof on the next tier down.

She brought to mind her lessons in aeronautics. She had not revealed to Taki that her practical experience of flying had been a single, one-way trip on a stolen Wasp fixed-wing, and then a few civilian ambles once she had got back to Collegium. She had to admit that the
Stormcry
was the best machine anyone had ever entrusted to her.

And then the fixed-wing was out over the city, and inexplicably not falling anywhere. It just powered off, twenty feet above the roofs she had been so worried about, and she was flying.

Whether winging by her own Art or by machine, she was clumsy at flying. She flew just like a Beetle-kinden, never meant to be in the air. But, whether by Art or artifice, she loved it. Whilst Taki waited on above in the
Esca Volenta
, she took a circle over the airfield and the hangar, thrilling as the heavy machine responded to the movement of the sticks. The
Stormcry
was no piece of precision engineering but had been built for someone just like her to use, someone who was no great pilot. She loved it.

She then saw Taki, above and over to her left, suddenly turn and head out across the city’s shore, skimming over the Exalsee, and Che coaxed the
Stormcry
after her, vastly wider in the turn, but with a straight speed that allowed her to catch up with the orthopter out over the gleaming water and high over the scattering of islands that punctuated the inland sea: half black crags and half sandbar-beaches.

She heard her own voice whooping with sheer glee. Taki was staying deliberately close, keeping a watchful eye on her, as she let the
Stormcry
sling low over the water, low enough that she could clearly see the knots of trees peppering the nearest island, with stone ruins jutting out from them, the remnants of a long-abandoned tower or fort. Then there was a sailing ship making stately progress across her path, and she pulled up and over, clearing the top mast by she knew not how little, before skimming back down over the water, weaving past another island, where a lone flag flew atop a dark peak.

Taki flew close, gliding for a second and waggling her wings, obviously trying to tell Che something. When Che failed to understand she pulled the
Esca
closer and closer, until Che had to pull herself away when it seemed that the
Esca
’s beating wingtips would graze her own fixed ones.

She caught a glimpse of Taki herself, making violent gestures at her to indicate:
Pull up! Higher!

Then there was a shadow ahead of her, a shadow visible beneath the water.

Che dragged the sticks back, and for a moment the
Stormcry
bucked in the air, shuddering, and then she was pitching upwards and the water beneath her had exploded – a great spray of it, high enough to spatter her even as she pulled away. Glancing back, she saw the giant creature submerging again. A fish, she realized, but one that could have swallowed her whole and taken a fair chunk out of her flying machine at the same time. If that water-spout had struck the
Stormcry
, she could have been brought straight down, into the water and those waiting jaws.

She shuddered and went higher still, following Taki as she skipped the
Esca
further over the Exalsee, pausing only once near the far shore to let a parachute out in order to rewind her engine.

The shore here was trimmed with jungle, and indeed the deep and knotted green extended as far inland as Che could see, punctured here and there with the glitter of inland lakes. Taki was already bringing her machine down, circling and circling as if looking for something. Che decided to fly in a wider circle above, waiting for Taki to settle.

They passed along the coast a little way, and then Che noticed a river mouth where the trees had been hacked away a little, producing a narrow strip of the work of human hands against that vast ocean of green. Just there, the
Esca
was already descending in steep circles, and Che swung the
Stormcry
out over the Exalsee again, only to bring her back, coasting low, towards the village.

It was hardly a village, though: a trading post, she supposed, would be the closest description. It consisted of three wooden buildings that seemed to have fought their way momentarily clear of the hungry green of the jungle, and then some rabble of canvas huddled around them. A good dozen long piers extended out from the shore and, while some had boats moored to them, there were at least seven flying machines hitched there also, including the
Esca
.

Like the rest, the
Stormcry
was equipped for a water-landing, and Taki had explained earlier that as long as she did not come in nose-downwards Che should be fine. It was a rough experience all the same, as she bounced the fixed-wing from the waves a couple of times, then managed to bring the engines down to an idle as she virtually paddled the machine in. Taki was already waiting on the pier to help her tie up.