Blood of the Mantis

‘What are you going to do?’ Brodan got out.

‘You would not understand,’ Sykore told him. ‘Nor would you believe.’ Inwardly, she steeled herself. Spying on the Spider-kinden girl was easy enough, thus seeing the world through the link of blood that she had forged. How much could she borrow, though? How far could she take it? Could she hold the Spider long enough to have her bring the box?

She thought not. The link had become fragile and, besides, the Moth seer would surely detect it if she borrowed so heavily.

She needs must expose herself, her own body, to danger. None of her kind relished that, for by nature they were lurkers in the shadows. She was loathe to risk so many decades of precious life in such an attempt, but the tools available to her were now few. She had only her own hands with which to take the box.

‘Await me near here,’ she told Brodan. ‘I shall come to you with the box, if I can.’

He stared at her sullenly, mistrustfully. She scowled at his ingratitude.

‘I shall save you, Lieutenant,’ she told him flatly, ‘both from your own stupidity and the wrath of your lords. Think simply of that.’ And with that she was hobbling off into the night.

The Buoyant Maiden had received a few new scars from Wasp sting-shot, most notably a smashed steering vane that had made even their return to Jerez problematic, and so Allanbridge had taken her away for emergency repairs. The next morning would see them sailing for Collegium, leaving this sodden town behind them at last.

They would not be sorry to leave it.

‘For me,’ Gaved informed them, ‘this is as far as I go. I won’t be on the airship with you tomorrow.’ Sef was cradled in one arm, wrapped in an ill-fitting robe that Nivit had somehow been able to procure.

Nivit regarded his old partner doubtfully. ‘No way you can keep her here,’ he pointed out.

‘Not here,’ Gaved agreed. ‘We’ll find somewhere, though. Somewhere… somewhere beside some lake that has no cities in it.’

Nivit chuckled scratchily. ‘Never thought I’d see you become smitten.’

Gaved shrugged. ‘I’m just sick of the life, Nivit. I need a break from it.’

‘You’ll be back at it, wherever you go. You’re a hunter born.’

Sadly, Gaved agreed that it was probably true.

Nivit’s offices were getting crowded now. Thalric was asleep, or feigning it, recovering from the stress he had put on his wound, having commandeered Nivit’s own bed. Tisamon sat in one corner, perhaps meditating, perhaps just keeping an eye on the two Wasps. A frown on her face, Tynisa was bandaging her hand, which was bleeding yet again. Achaeos watched her until she met his gaze, then he gave up on looking at anything else within the shack but the object he held in his hand.

Shadow Box. Box of Shadows. Soul of the Darakyon.

He had not expected it to be so beautiful, so very elegant, its surface intricate and twisted, wrought of unknown wood, layer on later of carvings, so that within the outermost cage of briars there were deeper and deeper details to be discerned, creatures and trees and mere suggestions of form. Form and movement.

He blinked, he whose eyes knew no darkness. Yet here it was, this mythical concept he had heard so much about but never seen, for there was no box within the carvings, no core to it at all but merely a darkness at the box’s heart. His seer’s senses were blinded by it, a caged piece of night that was likewise to magic as staring directly at the sun was to the eye, so great and potent that it could not be properly viewed.

What am I to do with this, now I have it? What would the Wasps have done with it, ignorant as they were of the magical arts?

What indeed? Was there merely some demented collector in the Wasp Empire, some man of great political power and no true knowledge, who had somehow set his heart on this thing that held the death of an age within it? Or perhaps…

Perhaps someone in the Empire truly understood what it was. A Wasp magician? Surely that was impossible.

In the shadows of magic, however, there was so little that was impossible.

The Wasps intended to use the box. He was sure of it, irrationally, without being able to give a reason. This was no mere collector’s toy. They wanted it. But how did one use it? What did one do with the Shadow Box? Holding it within his hands now, he realized that it had never been made with any purpose. It had never been made at all. No craftsman’s hands had added that wealth of shifting detail. It had formed from the very death of the Darakyon, shaped itself out of hate and pain and failure.

Use it.

If the Wasps wished to use it, that meant it could be used. And the Wasps did not have it, because he held it in his hands. He, Achaeos, pawn of the Darakyon, he had reclaimed it for the forest and the ghosts, but why should he himself not use it? What blows could be struck with this relic, against the Empire?