Blood of the Mantis

‘There in just a moment!’ Nivit shouted, and crept to the door quite silently, putting an eye to a strategic peephole. In a moment he looked back at Gaved and mouthed Customers. He quickly opened the door, and stepped back hurriedly as a large man entered.

Gaved stood up as he did so, and wondered instantly if this was one of the rich buyers Nivit had mentioned or, more to the point, whether this was the rich buyer of unknown kinden.

No, he realized as recognition came, Beetle-kinden. Beetle-kinden of a breed he had never seen before, though. Not Lowlander, not imperial either. The newcomer was very tall, stooping even once he was past the lintel, and broad-shouldered with it. Despite the rain outside, he wore no cloak, but was armoured head to foot – though it was armour that Gaved for one had never seen before. Much of it was iridescent, like Dragonfly plate, but instead of greens and golds and blues, it was pale and milky, sheened with oily rainbow hues that danced in the light of the candles Nivit’s girl had set out. The edges of the plates were gilded, with gold of a red richness that was also beyond Gaved’s experience. The man’s skin-tone, in the guttering light, was not the rich brown of a Beetle-kinden from anywhere Gaved knew but pale as an albino, though his hair was dark, cut short and plastered back around his rounded skull. His mouth was wide, his eyes small, and he bore a staff that ended in some device, some cunning piece of artificing. As he came in, Gaved caught a brief glimpse through the open door of men, large and small, waiting outside in the rain, in the darkness.

He realized that he had never seen anyone like this before, despite the fact that here was a Beetle-kinden, a ubiquitous breed. This then was something entirely outside Gaved’s well-travelled experience.

He glanced at Nivit. The Skater was standing very still. ‘What’s it we can do, chief?’ he asked his visitor, and his voice seemed a little fragile.

‘You find people? That is your job?’ the large Beetle said, and Gaved’s uneasiness increased, because the man had an accent that was also entirely foreign to him. ‘Escaped people. Troublesome people.’

‘That’s us, chief,’ Nivit agreed. The broad smile that now lit the big man’s face was entirely unpleasant.

‘Find her,’ he said, thrusting a square of paper out in one gauntleted hand. Nivit nipped forward to take it, and froze even as his fingers touched it. He barely glanced at it further before handing it to Gaved.

It was not quite paper, but something waxy, something a bit like paper but slightly greasy to the touch. There was a portrait on it, a picture of a woman. Spider-kinden would be Gaved’s guess, although it was not quite so easy to tell. The picture was very exact, though, very detailed. Moreover, it was inscribed beneath the waxy layer.

‘Find her,’ the stranger said.

Even in the face of all this, Nivit had not forgotten his professional priorities. ‘There’s the matter of a fee, chief,’ he started.

The man reached for his belt, and when his hand came out, it was to display three lozenges of metal. ‘You shall have one now. The rest when you have restored our property to us.’

Nivit timidly plucked one piece from the man’s hand. Something in his expression, in his very bearing, told Gaved that this metal was gold.

‘Sold, chief,’ the Skater said hoarsely. ‘Where can we-?’

‘We will contact you, later. Meanwhile hold her for us.’ The man gave Gaved a level stare, and then turned, forcing his armoured bulk out through the doorway, and then heading out through the rain to his fellows. Some of those fellows, Gaved saw, were bigger even than their visitor, others as small as Fly-kinden.

Nivit closed the door, and then simply sat down on the rain-puddled floor with his back to it. ‘Oh cursing wastes,’ he breathed. ‘This is bad.’

‘Who was he?’ Gaved asked. ‘Who were they?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t,’ Nivit said, and at the same time he was dissembling so badly that Gaved could tell it straight off.

‘Nivit…?’

‘Don’t ask me. We don’t talk about it.’ The Skater’s frightened look was genuine enough not to provoke more questions. ‘I bet you, though,’ Nivit went on. ‘I bet there’s lights out on the lake tonight. I bet you any money you like.’

He would not be drawn further. His hands, holding the bar of gold and the waxed portrait, were shaking.

When Scyla opened her eyes it was there again: just a shadow, nothing but a shadow. She could have passed her hand through it, if she had dared: if she had not thought that to touch it, to fall under that shadow, would mean death.

She had always been one for darkness, had Scyla, for dark rooms and night-work. Now she crept off the end of her bed and threw the shutters wide. That had worked, before. When the shadow had first stood there, the glare of daylight had banished it.