The Scarab Path

'There must be mirrors,' Praeda had been murmuring. 'Mirrors and lanterns and lenses perhaps. It's remarkable.'

Che remembered the intricacy of the Moth-kinden architecture at Tharn, and the tricks they could play with stone. Ancient techniques: Inapt craftsmen making up in ingenuity for their lack of artifice.

'Honoured and Beautiful Foreigners,' Ethmet addressed them, 'be so kind as to let me introduce you to my cousin Nafir, who is Minister for the Estuarine Waters.' Nafir had been pressed from the same mould as Ethmet, albeit more recently. He made the same genuflection, spreading hands out from his stomach, and Che did her best to copy the gesture. The great chamber was scattered with other Khanaphir men and women, two score at least, and it reminded her enough of the Collegium Assembly to suggest this was the combined Ministry of the city, gathered here expressly to scrutinize the foreigners. They did not crowd around: Ethmet would no doubt lead her past them all in turn. Instead, they were gathered in small groups, talking quietly. Only a few sat, although there were several stone benches arranged around the fountain that burbled gently in the hall's centre.

Nafir made some polite comments, and was soon left behind. Next a group of three turned out to be called Hemses, Methret and Pthome, and already Che's mind was swimming with the names. Of the faces she had lost all hope because, although the features varied, their expressions were so unified that she knew it would be impossible to recall them later.

A musician had struck up somewhere, playing something plaintive on delicate strings. At the far end of the room there was food laid out, a complex arrangement of meat, insects and unfamiliar vegetables. The sight of it obviously broke the back of Ma

'And here…' Ethmet went on, and introduced her to yet another Minister, and she smiled and nodded, and reflected that there were certain ubiquitous aspects of the Beetle-kinden character she could happily do without. Stenwold had always tried to avoid attending these kinds of receptions, and she wondered now if it had been to spare the visiting ambassadors from one more bewildering introduction.

'… is Amnon, the First Soldier of the Royal Guard,' continued Ethmet blandly, and Che started to repeat her threadbare greetings but, in the end, just said, 'Oh,' instead. To start with she was speaking to his chest, because he was more than a head taller than she was. It was a chest covered in gilt-edged metal scales, she noticed, for Amnon was wearing the most magnificent cuirass she had ever seen. She remembered the splendour of the escort that had welcomed them at the docks, and decided that they must have been wearing their everyday garb, because this, this was a dress uniform. Each scale had been enamelled in turquoise, and then minute figures painted on top, images of soldiers parading, throwing spears, giving battle. There was room for plenty of scales, too, because Amnon was broad as well as tall, his bare shoulders and arms bulging with muscle. He was gri

'It is of course a pleasure to meet one so distinguished,' he a

'I'm sure that won't be necessary,' stammered Che, but he was already magnanimously overruling her.

'The great land-fish of the Jamail have grown fat and fierce,' he declared grandly, 'and the Marsh folk wait only for my word before they take up their spears and bows. No personage of distinction should be absent, for it shall be the greatest hunt in a tenyear.'

'Well, that's very kind,' she managed. The sheer robust presence of him was overwhelming. She was grateful when Ethmet moved her on to meet someone less energetic.

Eventually, of course, she was left to her own devices, with her head already leaking names and faces and titles. Ethmet had proved the perfect, mild-ma

'It is not so,' he had assured her modestly. 'I am only here to give reality to the wishes of my Masters.'

'And how might a poor foreigner seek an audience with those Masters?' she had asked carefully.

His smile had not altered. 'Alas it ca

She had responded to that with the necessary compliments, and all had been well. There had not been the slightest pause in their conversation to warn her of dangerous ground, but she had felt the pit yawning at her feet, despite it.

She looked round to check up on the rest of her party. Ma

She was already regretting the impulse before she reached him, but she pressed on regardless. His glance towards her was less suspicious than usual, but only because their strange surroundings had already stretched his capacity for suspicion to breaking point.

'Are you… Is there anything you need?' she asked him. 'Should I introduce you to anyone here?'

He looked at her as though she was mad, not unreasonably given the interminable round of meeting and greeting she herself had just endured. 'I am waiting,' he replied flatly.

'Waiting? For?'

'You know what I mean.'

She sighed, because she did. He was still waiting for the trap to be sprung. He had been holding his breath for it, no doubt, ever since he had left Vek. How can anyone live in such a ferment of constant hostility? She wanted to explain to him that there was no great dark motive for their coming here, but he would never have believed her and, besides, was that actually true? I have my own motives and they are not those of my uncle, or the scholars accompanying me. Perhaps the Vekken have sensed that.

'If they wanted to kill us, it would not be by poison,' she said tiredly. 'We are defenceless in their city. We would be dead if they wanted us dead.' Deliberately, she broke off a sliver of meat and swallowed it. It was tender, flavoured with honey, and she discovered that she was hungry enough to take a larger piece. His eyes followed her hands as though she concealed a knife in them.

'We can't win, can we?' she said, still chewing. She felt the sudden need to be candid with him: his mulishness drove her to it. 'If, at the end of the day, we sail back to Collegium with no evidence of plots, no tricks, nothing but an academic study, then you'll just think that you didn't manage to root it out, that we hid it from you successfully. Is that it? Is there no chance of any trust?'