Heirs of the Blade_ Shadows of the Apt_ Book Seven - Adiran Tchaikovsky [61]
He had meanwhile called on the Masters, night after night, praying for guidance. There are foreigners profaning your city, great ones, he had told them. Shall we do nothing?
And an echo had come back, Nothing, only nothing – so that he could not know if he had been answered or not. He had eaten the drug called Fir to open his mind to them, and reached for their guidance, but still that empty Nothing had returned to him. He felt as though the Masters themselves were waiting, and likewise holding their breath.
And worming in his gut was the knowledge that it had not been his prayers that had inspired the Masters to drive away the Scorpion-kinden of the Many of Nem. For all that he had entreated them, as their pre-eminent servant, they might as well have been no more than the statues they had left behind.
As yet the hand of these new conquerors had been felt only lightly. Some foreigners within the city had been exiled, others arrested and taken away. Traffic in and out now had to pass Wasp checkpoints. Ships were searched at the docks. There was a curfew, though enforced erratically. A few deaths, a few more beatings: the Wasp soldiers were being kept in check. A few who had killed or raped in a manner that, by some invisible yardstick, was unacceptable had been executed publicly on crossed spears thrust up through their living bodies. So far, the Wasps were being very considerate conquerors, but Ethmet had an unpleasant feeling that this must surely change.
And then, only this morning, the Imperial colonel serving as chief ambassador had come to him with news which was plainly scarcely less new to the colonel himself.
The Empress is coming to Khanaphes.
In fact, the Empress had been on her way for several days, but the news had been carried only a half-day ahead of her, in case some enemy of the Empire might choose to take it as a challenge. The news the colonel had brought him was that the Empress would be arriving in Khanaphes by noon.
And now Ethmet looked up at this descending airship – the world of the now descending to destroy thousands of years of carefully husbanded history – and he felt like weeping.
There had been a Rekef mission to Khanaphes which had gone painfully awry, that much Seda knew. The few survivors who made it back to the Empire had not been Rekef people but Engineers, and so, instead of the secret service keeping its errors secret, matters became widely known in a variety of circles.
Seda knew that nobody had expected her to take much interest in this business. It had been meat and drink for General Brugan’s enemies, ammunition for their broadsides at him, when her advisers met. She was their grand figurehead, the beautiful, whimsical Empress, and they knew she left the minutiae of government to them. She made a great show of acceding to their requests, validating their decisions, making herself the unchanged catalyst by which every other thing happened, but she left them to get on with their areas of expertise, which they appreciated.
But when Khanaphes had been mentioned, as a ranging shot aimed at General Brugan’s high standing in her eyes, she had announced, ‘We will go there.’
There had been silence amongst her advisers then, and they glanced at each other uncertainly. Her brother, the late Emperor, had kept to their ridiculous tribal custom of leader and advisers all sitting in a line, not facing one another. That did not suit her, though, so