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Che had then lost her Aptitude. She had lost that world of reason and mechanics and light that was her birthright, and instead she was groping through a new world of charlatanry and ignorance, living off scraps of esoteric knowledge left over from the Days of Lore. That Che’s new viewpoint had saved both her and Thalric more than once was something he was unhappy to consider, but that he could not avoid acknowledging. This thought was a grain of sand in his mind that no amount of explanation could turn into a pearl.

There was only one other person that Thalric could name who had suffered the same reversal, and the fact that she had done so was a closely guarded secret. Seda, Empress of the Wasps, was likewise become Inapt, and on nights like these, when sleep kept its distance from him, he was forced to confront that curious web of interdependence: Che and the dead man Achaeos, Seda and the dead man Tisamon. Why do I feel they are linked? Why? There could be no connection, and yet some part of him remained sure of it, beyond any rational argument.

And now Che is asking me questions about the Empress? Thalric sat before their guttering fire, Che sleeping beside him, Varmen snoring gently on the far side of it. He felt as though the night was full of huge, monolithic things moving silently but massively, coming together to built some terrible edifice that he would be afraid to look upon.

I should leave, he told himself, not for the first time. Che is not in her right mind. This entire business is madness.

But he made no move to go, just looked down at her face in the firelight. We have travelled a long road together, since my men caught you in Helleron, he considered. We shall walk a few miles more in each other’s company. Why not?

She shifted and twitched in her slumber, and he felt an unplaceable sense of danger.

Be careful what you dream of, Che.

Thirteen

Gathering information in Khanaphes was like reaching into briars, a delicate and unrewarding business. Amnon himself could have gone and spoken to a hundred people who would remember him as First Soldier, as saviour of their city, but each one of them was still tied by invisible, unbreakable strings of responsibility and duty that led all the way to the Ministers. That the Empress had been welcomed, and more than welcomed, suggested that a former First Soldier asking awkward questions might become an inconvenience. Without knowing precisely what game Ethmet and the others were playing, Amnon was loath to announce his presence in the city. It was not fear of the Wasps, Praeda knew, but fear of having to go up against his own people, those loyal servants of the city whom he had formerly led into battle.

Besides, the general feel about the city’s populace was one of bafflement. Khanaphes’ dealings with outsiders had not changed in centuries. Even the disastrous assault recently by the Scorpion-kinden had fitted a particular pattern: the Many of Nem had always been the city’s enemies, after all, and it was only a matter of degree. The sudden imposition of an Imperial garrison on the city, the obeisance of the Ministers, the utter lack of reaction or statement from the Khanaphir administration, had left the people at large unsure of precisely what was happening. Patterns had been broken, but in a way that demanded no immediate reaction from them. Instead they were very pointedly going about their business as if nothing had happened, paying the Imperial troops as little notice as possible, and yet cooperating with them abjectly whenever they were forced to acknowledge the invaders’ presence. Amnon and Praeda witnessed several examples of the Wasps taking their customary liberties with a subject population: goods taken from merchants, insults and beatings inflicted on locals who got in the way or looked at the soldiers too boldly, spontaneous and seemingly random arrests. Throughout it all, the Khanaphir simply bowed their heads, following the example of their Ministers and presenting