Salute the Dark

‘I am a spymaster, a major in the Rekef Outlander. An imperial intelligencer, that is what I’ve spent my life being. Only now they won’t let me. And I was good, very good, at my job. I’ve been sorting through all these reports, and thinking: “I must tell them this,” or “the next step should be that,” and realizing that I can’t. I cannot tell them anything and, even if I could, they would not thank me. Instead they would have me on crossed pikes. I cannot use my skills on behalf of my Empire any more, so I’ve been sitting here torturing myself with my pretending.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She expected him to sneer at that, but he nodded soberly. ‘You probably are, at that. However did you get yourself mixed up in all of this?’

‘I am Stenwold’s niece.’

He looked back at the desk, the papers, and she knew better than to interrupt him. Some train of thought was now running its course in his mind, some weighty decision that had been weighed up delicately before she came in.

‘Szar is in revolt,’ he said at last.

‘I don’t-’

‘The city of Szar is in open revolt against the Empire,’ he told her. ‘Thousands of soldiers are therefore being diverted to put down the Bee-kinden with extreme force. Many of them are soldiers that would otherwise be heading west even now.’

She nodded slowly. Her mind’s map was hazy on precisely where Szar was, but she appreciated the point he made.

Thalric took a deep breath. ‘The city of Myna, of fond memory, is on the point of insurrection as well.’

‘Myna? That’s Kymene-’

‘Yes, it is. Myna teeters. The garrison has been weakened, with troops heading north-west for Szar. Still, the Empire has an iron hold on the city. So, do the Mynans risk everything with another upheaval?’

‘What are you saying?’ she asked, because it was obvious that something else lay hidden behind his words.

‘I am saying,’ he said slowly, the words forcing themselves out of him, ‘that if some agents of the Lowlands were to find their way to Myna, and there tell the Mynans that they are not alone, that the Lowlands struggled too, and Szar, and Solarno, that the imperial forces were stretching themselves thinner every day, then they would surely rise up where otherwise they might not dare.’

She stood up slowly. ‘You’re suggesting that… what? I? We? We? Achaeos can’t possibly travel.’

‘Achaeos is at least safe here amongst his own people,’ Thalric said. ‘But yes, we could fly to Myna in that ridiculous barrel of yours and stir up the pot. Because, if there’s nothing else on this world I can still do, I can play conspiracy with the best of them, and whilst the Mynans won’t ever trust me, they might trust you.’

‘I don’t want to leave Achaeos…’ But already the idea was growing on her. ‘I’ll have to speak with him,’ she ended lamely.

‘Of course,’ said Thalric. ‘But soon, as we must be swift. If the Mynans delay until after Szar is put down, it will all be for nothing.’

‘I will speak to him. Yes, I’ll speak to him now,’ she said, already reaching the doorway of the room. She looked back at him once, and he wondered what she saw there: someone almost an ally, or just a burnt-out Wasp spymaster?

But I still possess the craft. Indeed I cannot keep it from working. He was betraying the Empire every moment, with every breath, and yet he could look in the mirror and betray Stenwold Maker just as easily. I have now found my vocation. I have more faces than shape-changer Scyla ever had.

Eight

There had been a day and a night of sheer panic, as the fragile form of the Buoyant Maiden was hurled back and forth by storm winds the like of which Stenwold had never known. He had now been given a full chance to get acquainted, though. As the only Apt passenger, it had fallen to him to remain on deck with Jons Allanbridge, tying off lines, strengthening stays, doing what little could be done to stop the little airship simply flying apart, or the gondola parting company with the balloon and the machine ceasing to be anything but a collection of airborne detritus.

‘Wouldn’t we be safer going down?’ he had shouted at Allanbridge.

The other Beetle, still winching doggedly, had yelled back, ‘What do you think I’m trying to do? I’ve let the gas go as far as I dare, but the wind’s still keeping us up!’

Stenwold had wondered whether, if the storm succeeded in tearing them from the canopy, the gondola would have just gone sailing on, unsupported, as if tossing on an invisible sea.

Later on, Jons had been actively trying for all the height he could inject into his Maiden, generating new gas as swiftly as he could, because there had been a dark wall blotting out the horizon, and it had been the Barrier Ridge, the colossal cliff-scarp that delineated the Commonweal’s southern edge.