Salute the Dark

‘It… they didn’t really do it,’ Che insisted, aware of how wretched that must sound. ‘It was just a ploy… the man in charge was doing something complicated, political. He, please, he needed the noise as a cover to talk to one of his own agents…’

‘Did he. And who was this man?’

‘He was…’ The same man who fled from me at Hokiak’s. Kymene was eyeing her expectantly, though, so silence was not an option.

‘His name,’ Che said finally, ‘is Thalric. He went renegade later, for another reason. It’s complicated but, please, you have to…’

Kymene cut her off with just a gesture. A thoughtful expression came over her face. Chyses shuffled, sensing a new turn in the conversation which he was not happy about.

‘Thalric,’ the Mynan leader repeated.

‘Yes…’ It was obvious that Kymene knew that name, but for the life of her Che could not work out how.

‘Kymene, this is nonsense,’ Chyses grated. ‘Let me work on her now. I’ll have the true story in two minutes.’

‘Thalric,’ Kymene repeated. ‘Yes, that was his name.’

‘What?’ Chyses demanded.

Kymene stood up abruptly, and Che wondered if it was because she did not entirely trust Chyses behind her with a knife.

‘Thalric was indeed doing something political right then. I have cause to know it. So that much, at least, is true.’

‘Political? What’s that supposed to mean?’ Chyses snarled.

Kymene’s smile was brilliant and hard. ‘He was killing the Bloat, Chyses. He’s the one who killed our last governor for us, rid us of good old Ulther.’

To his credit, Chyses made no protest, merely stared.

‘Keep hold of her,’ Kymene ordered. ‘Untie her but keep her guarded. Find me this Thalric. Find me also people from Hokiak’s who’ll recognize him. I want to talk to him.’

Thalric had found himself a low taverna by the river by the name of Flaneme’s. Under the stern gaze of a woman of the same name, who was a broad-shouldered, massive-armed matron, he took a cup of wine and considered his options.

How madly optimistic he had been to think that his name would not have become common parlance in Myna! Seeing the facts inscribed on paper, uncovered during his idle investigations at Tharn, the idea had seemed clear to him. He had put himself seamlessly back into the spy game without recalling the pain that had sent him away from it.

No doubt that old rogue Hokiak had since heard all the Rekef news: who was in and who was out. He bared his teeth in frustration and glowered into the wine, seeing there a darkened glimpse of his own reflection. Hokiak had obviously pegged Che as a Rekef turncoat, this new allegiance twisted into her painfully in the torture rooms of the governor’s palace. The irony of that notion was not lost on Thalric, who had in the end never quite found the proper moment to put Che to the question. Now he could spare a thought to wonder whether the Scorpion would sell her either to the resistance or the Empire – and which of them, at this stage, would be kinder. Beyond that single speculation his own fate consumed his thoughts entirely.

He was being shadowed, he knew. Whoever it was, acting for whatever side in the little brawl that was brewing in Myna, they did not yet want to broach him openly. They were waiting for him to put himself neatly where they could descend on him with the minimum of public fuss. That might mean that it was Kymene’s people come to finish him off. Or it might mean that it was the Rekef, who preferred to have people disappear without even a ripple. He was definitely being watched, however. He had come into Flaneme’s place because it was near-full with rivermen and labourers, men and women whose politics were probably not hot enough to set them against him. Still, he had gathered some filthy looks on entering, so the intelligence he had perused in Tharn had been right. Uprising was hanging on the air like smoke.

Why in blazes did I come back to this wretched town? His past had crossed with Myna’s too many times: in the initial imperial conquest, when he had been a raw young officer under Ulther’s patronage; his betrayal of that same patron all those years later, on the orders of his Rekef masters; and now a third time with this debacle. He should have left it at just twice.

He had to leave Myna immediately. He caught himself wondering how he would break this news to Stenwold. Fool! But it was true that abandoning Che had left a foul taste in the mouth. In a life composed of so many dark deeds this one, he realized, would stay with him.

Just one more amongst the host, though, so he would live with it.

A shadow crossing him made him look up. Flaneme stood there, burly arms folded. ‘Time for you to leave, Master Wasp.’

He stared up at her, biting down his instinctive response. He knew this game well, for he had played it from across the table often enough.