But Brugan was a rational man, believing in the physical world, and when he turned the lamps up high he could banish such subversive speculation and continue drawing up his list of who must
disappear, who must see the inside of an interrogation room before being politely asked to change their allegiance, or who must be awarded a key post. It was a simple thing for a man of his
abilities to turn poacher and devise just the sort of treason the Rekef Inlander was supposed to guard against.
Tonight.
It must start tonight. She had not called for him, and the lamps were bright, and he had sent out a summons to those that he considered his allies, men who would cling to the hem
of his cloak as he elevated himself, who were wronged or ambitious or just plain greedy, but men who, most of all, were
his
.
It held an odd mirror to the gathering that the Empress had presided over earlier, such was Esmail’s first impression. Many of the faces were the same: there was General
Brugan, and there, as if to balance Harvang’s gross physicality, was the pinpoint neatness of Colonel Vecter, who had also brought along a couple of aides. Knowles Bellowern of the Consortium
was there, too, the only non-Wasp and looking wholly unsettled by the business, whatever was going on. There was no Colonel Lien of the Engineers, no army generals – they were out in the
field after all – but another half-dozen had taken their place, men younger than Brugan but old enough to have chosen a side and invested their power in a particular way of life.
Ostrec’s memories allowed Esmail to recognize many of them by sight: Rekef mostly, but with a couple from the Consortium and one who was a steward at the palace.
They took their places soberly. Brugan had not called them to his offices within the palace, the heart of the Rekef, but to this anonymous townhouse owned by some mid-ranking Wasp family who
were conveniently absent. The visitors had retired to one of the inner rooms and, at Brugan’s nod, the windows had been twice covered, with shutters and then with felt, so that the room
became close and uncomfortable and dark.
Esmail was not concerned about the dark. From behind Ostrec’s blank face he was able to read a great deal from those around him. Harvang was chewing at something distractedly, for comfort
more than sustenance. Vecter cleaned his spectacles briskly, the small, sure movements of his hands revealing his anxiety. People shuffled, glanced at the door or at each other. Knowles Bellowern
had a pipe in his hand, the scent of tallum pollen fragrant from it, but he kept it unlit.
Ostrec would have felt alarmed, Esmail discovered. He would have shown none of it, but Harvang’s deputy had been a sharp enough man to know that this gathering, in this place, portended
nothing good. Oh, opportunity perhaps, but these men were not natural allies, and Ostrec was not a major player himself. All too easy to be crushed between the wheels.
‘You know me,’ Brugan began. ‘My interests are the Empire’s interests. I am the benchmark of loyalty, the defender of the throne. As my predecessor, Rekef himself, served
the first Emperor, so I have served the third, and now I serve our first Empress.’ He was not looking at any of them directly, but staring down at the floor. Esmail exhumed Ostrec’s
memories and saw that this was not the fierce and forthright Brugan that the man remembered.
‘I have sounded you all out at one time or another,’ the Rekef general continued quietly. ‘You may not have realized it. A conversation, hidden watchers, an investigation into
your finances or your associations. No man reaches your high stations without being vetted, and you all know people who failed that test. It is my
job
, as leader of the Rekef Inlander, to
ensure the purity of purpose of those in office. The Empire must be led by those who will best serve it.’
He was skirting the point, and they all knew it. Looking covertly from face to face, Esmail saw that most of them there knew already what that point would be. The tension between the men
gathered there was almost audible.
‘Empress Seda, the only living kin of our beloved Emperor Alvdan the Second, is but a girl,’ Brugan said softly. ‘She has proved that she is fit to rule, and there is none left
who denies her that. Yet still she may be misled. She may fall into undesirable company, give her ear to those who do not have her best interests at heart. We are patriots; we know full well the
demands of Empire. When we see foreigners and slaves gain influence with the very crown and forget their place, then does it not befit us to act? It does.’ His answer to his own rhetoric came
slightly too quickly, as if fearing a dissenting voice. ‘I have brought you here tonight because I trust you to do what is right. The Empress must be protected.’ On that word, something
almost broke in his voice, and everyone there contrived to ignore it.
What does he know?
For it was evident that something had dented Brugan’s Apt composure sufficiently hard that he could no longer entirely blot out the truth. This was no mere coup,
therefore. This was the head of the Rekef trying to master and control something he could not understand. And yet, and yet . . . hearing Brugan talk, Esmail could sense the huge contradictions in
the man, his thoughts, his feelings.
Anyone signing up on this ship will regret the voyage
, he considered, and it was only a shame that he must play Ostrec’s role here, and become a part of this business for mean
ambition. Looking about the room he confirmed that, Brugan’s lofty words aside, every man there was considering how he himself might best profit from the Empire, most especially an Empire
where Seda’s power was considerably curtailed.
‘There are two paired weapons available to us,’ Brugan elaborated. ‘It is our duty to remove those close to the throne who are unfit to sully it with their touch. I have some
names for the list, and I have no doubt that each of you may have more.’ The first incentive to treason: a free hand to dispose of their rivals, or at least those rivals not present in this
room. ‘At the same time,’ Brugan went on, ‘we will install our own people close to the Empress: as her counsellors, in her retinue of servants, everywhere she goes. When she seeks
advice and aid, it must be to us she turns, no matter whose face she finds. We are the heart of the Empire, after all. Where will she find sounder counsel than ours?’
His gaze pinpointed each of them in turn, seeing how they bore up to the weight of his plan. Esmail decided that one, perhaps two of the people in this room would be found wanting – and
shortly thereafter found dead, or not found at all. The extent of Brugan’s treason, however he might dress it up, was such that no faint hearts could be allowed to go on beating once they
knew of his schemes.
‘Go make your lists,’ the Rekef general instructed them. ‘Men to frighten, men to blackmail and control, men to be made to disappear. We must cut out the rot, and if a little
healthy flesh goes with it, well, many a surgeon has made the same decision. Beyond that, give me names of those that I should bring into the Empress’s company, as her immediate retinue. The
position is not without risk, but we will need such people in place.’ He paused a moment, and then looked directly at Esmail. ‘She’s asked after your aide, Harvang.’
Even as Brugan said it, Esmail was thinking back to that unknown Moth Skryre who had set him on this path and was wondering,
How much did you know, back then? Did you even foresee this?
The conclusion was inescapable. What surprised him more were the corpulent colonel’s murmured words as he stepped forward. ‘You think you’re up to this, Ostrec? She’s quite
mad, they say. Mad, and with the power of life and death over all of us. You understand the stakes?’ The almost parental concern was grotesque on the man’s face.
‘I’m equal to the task, sir. Don’t worry about me,’ said Esmail in Ostrec’s voice.
‘Well then, my man here will do us proud,’ Harvang spoke out. ‘Besides, he’s a fair-looking youngster. You never know, the Empress might be looking for some
companionship.’ His leer was vile.
Esmail braced himself. It was impossible to tell whether Harvang had simply not registered Brugan’s own conflicting feelings about Seda – which were screamingly obvious to Esmail
himself – or whether the fat man might be playing Brugan deliberately, engaged in some power game of his own against his superior who, of course, could not admit his emotional position.
Whatever the reason, and Esmail was alarmed that he could simply not tell, there was a moment’s blank silence between Brugan and Harvang before the former nodded briefly.
‘I’ll see that he’s sent for,’ the general noted, and Esmail could only hope that Harvang’s games weren’t about to get him killed.
Of course, death at the hands of a jealous General Brugan might be the least of his worries. The Empress’s sheer magical might had already rattled him, and now he was going to meet it
head-on. His own magic was one of subterfuge only, distraction, misdirection and disguise. He had a great deal of skill but relatively little power. He would not wish to go before a Skryre of the
Moths, for example, or a Spider-kinden Manipula, and ply his trade. They would quickly sniff the magic on him, and have the training and experience to unravel his little spells and look on his true
face. The Empress, though: if she had a fraction of their skill then she would crack his deceptions like a snail shell. He could only hope that he could deflect and divert all that thundering
strength, preserving his masks in the teeth of the gale.
There was more business, and Ostrec’s ears took it all in, the anatomy of Brugan’s fifth column being discussed in summary detail. Esmail himself barely registered it, storing it for
later. He was more concerned with planning ahead for when he himself should meet Seda’s cool stare.
He was frightened, and he would defy anyone with a little knowledge of the old ways not to be. There was something else there, too, though. The servant, Shoel Jhin, had spoken of a return to the
Days of Lore, a resurgence of magic. Esmail had marked him down for mad, but if there was even the slightest chance of such a thing, if even one part in a hundred of the way the world used to be
could be transplanted into the present, then what was going on here was bigger than the games of Skryres, and perhaps Esmail’s instructions did not mean so much any more. After all, he was
beyond scrutiny now, beyond interference. What if the Empress was better fitted to be his mistress than the Moths of Tharn were to give him orders?
‘Farsphex,’ was all he said, as he showed it to her.
The Wasp pilot who had been assigned to Pingge was named Scain, and he was the most cadaverous of his kinden that she had ever met: a lean, gangling creature who seemed ill-suited to be any sort
of soldier, let alone someone trusted with some top-secret Imperial plan. Like his commander, Aarmon, he spoke very little, although his voice betrayed the remnants of a North-Empire accent, the
suggestion of an upbringing amongst the hill tribes, which made his current technically sophisticated post even more of a mystery, of course.
The Farsphex, however, was
all
technical sophistication. Pingge was no aviatrix, but she had a grasp of technology that went a little beyond what was strictly necessary for a factory
worker, and she knew she was looking at something different, even if she could not quite work out what was unusual. Before her was a long-bodied orthopter, the wings folded at an angle back along
its curved body, the enclosed cockpit sitting over a pair of what she guessed were the rotary piercers she had heard of, brought into the Empire’s arsenal after the original Solarno campaign.
The Farsphex was a big machine, half as long again as the Spearflights that had been shoved to the back of the hangar, and its belly seemed overlarge, pregnant with some manner of machinery, or
something. More, she could see that there was something odd about its wings, just by looking at it. The designers had managed to give it an air of elegance, despite all that, but it was plainly a
different breed to the older orthopters standing nearby.
She took a few cautious steps closer, then glanced back at Scain.
‘Go ahead,’ he nodded briefly, and she let her wings flurry her up to the curving top of the machine’s hull. Thoughtfully, she touched the blade of one of the twin propellers
there. Pingge would be the first to admit that her knowledge of aviation was limited, but she hadn’t thought orthopters needed those.
Scain stalked over to the flier’s side, running his hand along it in a gesture that said far more than the words he used. She thought that he would open the cockpit, but instead he popped
a hatch in the Farsphex’s side.
‘See,’ he said, pointing. She hung her head over the opening, looking upside down into the cramped interior. There was a brief crawlspace that would take Scain to the pilot’s
seat, but immediately inside the hatch was room for someone else, though only someone small because there, on a hinged arm, was a reticule. It was the same toy that she had been training with all
this time, but seeing it in this unfamiliar setting sent a chill down her spine.
‘In,’ Scain directed, and he went squirming into the orthop-ter’s innards, all elbows and knees as he wriggled through the crawlspace, then contorted himself to get into his
seat.
She hesitated at the hatch’s mouth, until another preremptory ‘In!’ from Scain forced her hand. A moment later she was sitting before the reticule, just as she had so often
before, but the walls of the Farsphex’s hull crushed in on her from all sides. Below her, the machine was missing a good area of floor, enough for her to slip through if she was careless,
allowing the reticule’s impartial eyes to view the terrain below. At the moment, all its angles and mirrors served only to give her eyepiece a good close view of the hangar floor ahead of the
machine’s nose.
The hatch was shut from outside with a slam, making her jump. All at once she was enclosed by darkness, but Fly-kinden were used to that, from the interconnected underground communities they
favoured, or the cramped tenements they were shunted into in the cities.