Salute the Dark

They had forced him to bring the airship down, to find more Wasps waiting there. In total there were barely a dozen of them, patrolling the Silk Road from Tark to Helleron with their flying machine in the air and a big docile spider, laden with packs and water bottles, on the ground. Tynisa had instantly started considering her options. She could probably not manage to kill them all, but she could eliminate enough to get away, but then they could still fly after her and shoot at her, and there was also the fixed-wing somewhere nearby to take into her equations.

Broadways had no convincing explanation for them, but the leader of the patrol looked sufficiently venal to Tynisa’s eyes. She virtually had to kick the Beetle-kinden before he took the hint and led the man aside, offering to make a contribution to the Emperor’s war chest. Thankfully, the goods he was carrying included machine-cut gems from Collegium’s workshops, which served to smooth the way well enough.

It was then that the inexplicable happened, for, looking at the leader of the Wasp patrol, she heard words inside her head. The voice that spoke them was not a voice as she recognized it. It was composed of whispering and rustling and the darkness between trees, all forced through the gaps of human words, and it said to her, Go with him.

She started so suddenly that the Wasp officer stared at her, perhaps thinking she was about to try something violent.

‘What?’ he asked of her. ‘She’s your crew is she, or a passenger?’

‘Crew. Guard,’ explained Broadways.

‘Excuse me, Sergeant,’ Tynisa said. ‘I was just wondering…’

‘Wondering what?’ He looked her up and down, but the expected smile did not come. He had a broad-jawed, solid face that did not show his feelings much.

‘What’s work like in the Empire?’

The sergeant looked from her to Broadways. ‘Fed up with this fellow’s company are you? Can’t say I blame you.’

‘I’m sick of working for clowns,’ she said. ‘You people always seem to have it worked out.’ She ignored Broadways’ squawk of protest. ‘Is there anyone I could speak to, back where you’re based, or is it a closed shop?’

At that he did smile, if only slightly. ‘You ever heard of the Auxillians? They come in all shapes and kinden.’ She could not tell his thoughts but guessed that he was considering the war with the Lowlands, the possibility of a useful spy or agent. So let him think that. ‘I can take you to the camp at Asta, if you want,’ he continued. ‘I’ll fit you up with someone, I’m sure, if they reckon you’re useful.’

‘That,’ she said, ‘would be very acceptable.’

She did not bid farewell to the scandalized Broadways, only watched his patchwork airship sail on towards Helleron. Helleron, where she too was supposed to be going – so why was she not? Because of a voice, just a voice in her head, which had said, ‘Go with him.’

She wondered if Felise Mienn heard voices in her head, or whether the Dragonfly woman’s madness was of a different sort.

Still, Tynisa was committed now. The Wasp patrol trekked north and east with their patient spider pack-beast, with the fixed-wing circling sometimes overhead. She tried to recall her memories of Asta: a midnight reconnaissance with Tisamon while in search of Che. It was little enough. She was alone now, living on her wits and on three words spoken to her by a voice she did not know.

She gave them two days before she broached the subject. In that time the Wasps had got used to her. They did not include her, their talk and occasional laughter being about people and rituals she did not recognize, but she proved that she could keep pace with them, and that went a little way towards being accepted.

‘Sergeant,’ she finally said, those two days in, ‘I don’t suppose you see much in the way of Mantis-kinden this far east.’

The look he gave her sent a thrill through her because, however flat his features, something moved there. Voice or no voice, she was not just casting herself into the void.

‘Strange question, that,’ he said.

‘There’s a particular man,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been tracking him for a while. Just asking out of interest, you understand.’

‘I understand your kinden and theirs don’t get on,’ he remarked. ‘Odd thing is, yes, we’ve got one at Asta right now.’

At Asta? What is he doing at Asta? But of course it need not be Tisamon. There was no reason at all for it to be Tisamon. No reason except the voice…

‘Maybe I’ll take a look at him when I’m there.’

‘You’re likely to enjoy it,’ he said, although he did not clarify.