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Uie Se had gathered together her herbs, and handed Che a pouch full of them. ‘You should steep them in water, let the water boil as you sleep. Do you keep to any of the Apt?’ she asked and, at Che’s nod, made a sour face. ‘They will complain, so ignore them. As for this,’ she held up a ring of twisted copper wire, ‘hang it near your bed – anywhere there are spiders smaller than your fingernail. Let one spin its web within it, and your dreams shall not escape.’

When Che returned to Hokiak’s Exchange, the guide had arrived and, to Che’s surprise, turned out to be another Wasp-kinden. He was a big, broad-shouldered specimen, decidedly bulkier than Thalric, with a heavy jaw and hair trimmed close to his skull, looking every bit the thug. Thalric and he had been sharing a jug of wine, though and, given Thalric’s history among his own kind, were clearly getting on remarkably well.

‘Cheerwell,’ he greeted her. ‘This is – Varmen. He’ll be guiding us over the border.’ A moment’s pause before the name told her that he had been about to assign this man a military rank, before checking himself.

Deserter, then, she guessed, rather than a lifelong mercenary. ‘You’re a smuggler, Master Varmen?’ she asked doubtfully.

The big Wasp shook his head. ‘Been back and forth a few times, riding escort mostly. Still, I know the best places.’

‘I’d have thought getting into the Commonweal was hard enough with one Wasp, let alone two,’ Che commented, sitting down and reaching for a wine-bowl.

Varmen grinned. ‘Not so hard, at that, but we’re talking about Principalities, anyway. Commonweal laws don’t hold there, you’ll see.’

Eleven

The ring of twisted copper wire dangled above her, suspended from a thornbush branch. The walls of Myna were behind them now, and they had made good time heading north-west before nightfall had caught them. They rode, which Che found easier than she had expected – easier even than the two Wasps seemed to, who had at least a little more experience than she did.

They had found a suitable hollow and had tethered their mounts, with Varmen using his sting to start a campfire, after a few explosive false starts. The man’s pack-beetle had its leash still tied to the pommel of his horse’s saddle, presumably so that they could get moving that much faster if need be. It was a ridiculously small creature, around the size of a Fly-kinden, and almost obscured under the heavy load of luggage that Varmen apparently felt compelled to travel with.

Varmen was not overly talkative, nor aloof either, for he responded readily when questioned. He and Thalric exchanged anecdotes intermittently, a well-travelled round of Imperial localities, favourite drinking dens, family names and public figures. Che hovered at the edges of their laconic conversations, feeling excluded by their shared race and past. Even she, though, could detect the huge gaps in their exchanges, the vast areas of personal history unvisited. Neither of them was keen to pin down any specifics of the respective military careers that each had abandoned.

The road that he was now guiding them along had provided the Empire’s invasion route, all those years ago.

Now that they were camped, Thalric was taking first watch, while Che had taken to her bedroll and let sleep overcome her. She had left her herbs simmering over the fire as instructed, although the two Wasps wrinkled their noses at the smell of them.

Above her head, a small spider had already begun to build its trap within the ring of twisted wire.

Just the other side of sleep, the fierce sun of Khanaphes blazed down, fragments of day and night, times past and present, faces she had known. Her newfound heritage was clawing at her, seizing control of her head and forcing her eyes open to see . . .

The sun over Khanaphes was a bronze nail-head driven into a cloudless sky.

Ethmet, the First Minister, stood on the steps of the Scriptora and watched his world teetering on the brink of destruction. It was an unexpectedly peaceful sight, for the second sun above him was