Part 19 (1/2)

'In fact I am the only Colonel-Auxillian in the Empire. I know that because they invented the rank solely for my benefit. Perhaps one day they will have to make me General-Auxillian, and then perhaps, what? Emperor-Auxillian. That would be amusing. Where were you trained?'

Totho shut his eyes and said nothing.

'Do you know why you are here rather than with the other prisoners? Perhaps you do not. We captured three of you, and the other two will be questioned as the Wasps question, as far as their physical capabilities permit. This, as you should have surmised, is not questioning. This is merely a friendly conversation, Totho.'

Still Totho said nothing, and his interrogator clicked his tongue in annoyance. Totho waited for a blow, but instead there was a tugging at his wrists, and then his bonds were loosened. He opened his eyes to see the girl retreating from him again.

'Of course, you require some token of my good will,' said Drephos.

Finally Totho was able to twist around to look at him. He saw none of the man's flesh. The robe and cowl made a tall spectre of him. Only that gauntlet emerged from the folds of black and yellow cloth.

'What is going on?' Totho demanded. 'What do you want from me?'

'You are here because of this.' The gauntlet dipped into Drephos's robe and came out again with a strangely hesitant precision that made Totho wonder whether the hand inside had been injured or burned. On its reappearance it was gripping a small mechanism that he knew only too well.

'And this.' Drephos's other hand, dark-gloved but bare of metal, appeared briefly to hang a long strip of pocketed leather on the arm of the metal chair. It was Totho's tool-strip, and the device brandished before his face was one of his air batteries, his little pet project he had never been able to finish.

'It is remarkable how much one can learn from the contents of a man's pack,' Drephos continued. 'You have clearly been trained as an artificer, but I could have told that from the calluses of your hands. You were trained in Collegium then? In the Great College?'

Numbly, Totho nodded.

'I would have given a great deal for that privilege.'

'You're an artificer?' Totho seized on that statement. It seemed to offer him some small chance of respite.

Drephos laughed hollowly. 'I am perhaps, though I say it myself, the most skilled artificer you will ever meet. The only reason I qualify that with ”perhaps” is your own tutelage. I am painfully aware that, myself excluded, the Empire is somewhat young in the game of artifice: three generations from barbarism whilst you Lowlanders have a tradition that goes back centuries. Still, one must work with the tools one has.'

'But the Empire must have artificers. Wasp artificers?' Totho said. 'I can't be so special.'

'But you are, because I do not want to rely on Wasp artificers. They are either dull men who have learned their mechanics by rote, or they waste what intellect they have in politics and one-upmans.h.i.+p and care nothing for the science itself. No, my people, my journeymen, are chosen from other sources. Unless the man be an outcast, I will not have a Wasp in my workshops.'

'You want me to-?'

'I am interested in you you, Totho. I have never had the honour of a Great College student working for me.'

'I will never work for the Empire!' Totho snapped, sitting halfway up, then falling back, his head still clamouring.

'I have a case to make.' Drephos sounded amused.

'I know the Empire. I know how they look on other races, even if they aren't halfbreeds!' Totho said through his teeth.

'And what if they are?' There was such dry humour in the man's voice that Totho propped himself up on one elbow to see what was so funny.

Drephos raised his hands, one cased in metal and one without, and slipped his cowl back. The face he revealed was mottled and blotchy with grey, and his eyes had no irises. There were many grades of halfbreed, Totho already knew. A few like Tynisa were just like one parent or the other, and some others managed to combine their heritage into something exotic and attractive. Most were like Totho himself, stamped with an intermingling of bloods that others saw, and then judged them by. Drephos, though, was of those few who seemed actively twisted by their inheritance. His features were lean and ascetic but subtly wrong in their proportions. Even when he smiled the effect was unpleasantly skewed.

'I am aware, young man, that I will win no prizes for my beauty, but believe that I, therefore, judge no man on his face or blood,' he said.

'Drephos,' Totho said softly. 'And that other name, the long one. Moth-kinden names?'

'My mother was left to name me. My father, unknown and unmourned, bestowed on her only so much of his time as it took to rape her. Wasp soldiers are not known for their benevolence towards prisoners or slaves. I suppose few soldiers are.'

'But you said you were an artificer?'

The lopsided smile grew wider than seemed comfortable. 'Remarkable, is it not? And yet something from my father's seed has communicated to me all the workings of the world of metal, for here I am, so much of an artificer that they turn their hierarchy inside out to accommodate me. Without me the walls of Tark would still be whole, utterly unbreached. Yet my mother's people sit in their caves and draw pictures on the wall, and pretend they are still great.'

Totho sank back into the chair. There was a feeling snagged deep inside him, because he was now interested. This maverick artificer, who seemed to have carved out some high station even amidst the Wasp Empire, had caught his imagination.

'Was it your idea,' Drephos asked softly, 'to destroy my airs.h.i.+ps?'

And there there was a leading question, and more what Totho had been expecting. It would be better, he thought, to return to familiar ground. 'It was.' He steeled himself. was a leading question, and more what Totho had been expecting. It would be better, he thought, to return to familiar ground. 'It was.' He steeled himself.

'Don't be shy of it,' Drephos said. 'It was a well-planned raid. I'd guessed that the Ant-kinden hadn't considered it. I have dealt with them before and there is not a grain of intuition in their entire race. But you you saw the threat and acted, even as I myself saw our vulnerability. That is why I had two whole wings of soldiers on standby, to rush to the airs.h.i.+ps the very moment anything disturbed the camp. And just as well I did.' saw the threat and acted, even as I myself saw our vulnerability. That is why I had two whole wings of soldiers on standby, to rush to the airs.h.i.+ps the very moment anything disturbed the camp. And just as well I did.'

So that was it: the final nail in the coffin for Totho's desperate plan. He recalled in his mind a brief swirl of images, the fighting, the fury. A sudden lurch took him, and he tried to spring out of the chair. Even before the young woman had moved to restrain him, he was already toppling, the pain in his head making it impossible to stand. Her arms grappled his body, surprisingly strong, hauled him up and sat on him the edge of the chair.

'Prisoners . . .' Totho muttered.

'Yes?' Even with his eyes closed he could hear Drephos moving near.

'You said you had taken prisoners. Other prisoners.'

'Two to be precise, although one of them may not recover enough to be questioned.'

'Was there . . . ?' He squinted up at the man. 'Was there a Dragonfly-kinden man? He would have had-'

'I know the Commonwealers, the Dragonflies,' Drephos confirmed. 'After all, the Twelve-Year War was the testing ground for some of my best inventions. I'm sorry, though, but the other prisoners are just Ant-kinden. If there was a Dragonfly last night, he has not been taken alive, nor did any escape, to our knowledge. I am afraid it seems most likely he is amongst the fallen.'

Eighteen General Maxin took a last moment to understand his reports. They were a secret of his success, these reports. He had very able slaves whose sole task was to compile the wealth of information the Rekef Inlander brought, so he could then look through these few scrolls and read in them all he needed to know. Details could come later. Details he would ask for. For now he had his picture, his mental sketch of who was plotting, who was falling, who was on the rise or on the take.

And his information was not just fodder for the Emperor's ears, either. Maxin had his own schemes. The Rekef was a young organization, created in the very closing years of the first Emperor's reign by the man whose name the spies now bore. The structure and hierarchy had evolved over the next twenty years but at some levels it was still changing. Maxin had his own plans for it.

There were three generals of the Rekef, the idea being that each controlled his own particular section of the Empire, spoke to the others and reported to the Emperor. In practice, of course, those men who were ambitious enough to become generals in the Rekef did not suffer the interference of their peers.

And Maxin himself was winning. That was all he cared about. He was the man who sat amongst the Emperor's advisers. General Brugen was chasing shadows and savages around the East-Empire amidst famine and bureaucracy and the stubbornness of the slave races. General Reiner was wrestling with the Lowlands. For the moment, Maxin was winning and he intended to keep it that way.

Of course there had been setbacks. Brugen was a conscientious man with more small troubles than his staff could conveniently cope with, so Maxin did not fear him. General Reiner was another matter, however. Only recently a man whom Maxin had raised to the governors.h.i.+p of a city, a man well placed for Maxin's plans, had been disposed of by Reiner. The city, its Rekef agents and its considerable wealth, had then been put in the hands of Reiner's shadow, the execrable Colonel Latvoc.

It had been a challenge to Maxin's primacy, of course, but Maxin enjoyed challenges as long as he won in the end.

He would would win in the end. He had the Emperor ready to love him like a brother . . . Or perhaps not like a brother. After all, Maxin had overseen the murder of all the Emperor's siblings bar one, and dealt with several other rivals at the same time. Nevertheless he had now presented the Emperor with perhaps the one gift all his Empire could not give him. It would be leverage enough, Maxin decided, to call for a major restructuring in the Rekef, and then Reiner and Brugen would understand, however briefly, that any army could only have win in the end. He had the Emperor ready to love him like a brother . . . Or perhaps not like a brother. After all, Maxin had overseen the murder of all the Emperor's siblings bar one, and dealt with several other rivals at the same time. Nevertheless he had now presented the Emperor with perhaps the one gift all his Empire could not give him. It would be leverage enough, Maxin decided, to call for a major restructuring in the Rekef, and then Reiner and Brugen would understand, however briefly, that any army could only have one one general. general.

He rolled up the scrolls and stowed them in the hidden compartment of his desk, then left to meet the Emperor.

They had moved the slave to a better cell, one with tapestries and carpets, some Gra.s.shopper carvings for ornament, and no natural light. Uctebri had complained at the brightness of the gaslamps, though, and now oil lanterns hung randomly from the ceiling about his chambers, making them look more squalid than ever.

Still, he came to greet them at the first call of his name and Maxin knew they had been feeding him well enough. This scrawny creature seemed to have a remarkable appet.i.te: it was not clear precisely where so much blood could go go.

When the prisoner had presented himself, Alvdan circled him cautiously. Maxin knew the difficulties here were ones of belief. What the wretched old Uctebri had proposed was impossible, quite impossible, as any rational mind well knew. The thing the old Mosquito promised, the golden, impossible dream of sorcerers and ancient kings, belonged in the forgotten folk tales of slaves. When Uctebri spoke of it, though, it was hard not to remember that his very race was supposed to be extinct, to be entirely mythical. While he rasped the words, with his quiet certainty, his strange insistence, it was possible for the rational mind to be tricked into believing, just for a moment, that the quackery was real.