CHAPTER 2Vespa put her cup on its saucer very carefully and set it on the table. “Queen of the what?” She thought of the dusty exoskeleton in the storage rooms of the Museum. While she owned that the shadowspiders might be social insects like ants or bees, she had a feeling that Syrus wasn’t talking about that sort of queen.
“The xiren. What you call shadowspiders.”
“Hang on—since when do shadowspiders have a queen?” Bayne asked.
“Since the beginning of time,” Syrus said. He still had a bit of the silver dust of the kinnon sparkling around him, in addition to the grime of work and the streets smeared across his cheeks. Vespa had wanted to tell him to clean up a little before they entered the reception room, but she also hadn’t wanted to embarrass him. He could certainly be sensitive about such things, especially in front of Olivia.
Olivia frowned. It looked as if she was trying to simultaneously concentrate and replay in her mind every word Syrus had said.
“You’ve never heard of this in the Architect histories?” he said, looking over at Bayne. “You have most of our old texts.”
“Yes, but we can’t read most of them, if you’ll recall. Refresh my obviously flawed memory.” Bayne’s gaze was fixed on the boy, and Vespa felt almost sorry for the intensity of such scrutiny.
Syrus sighed, as if he wished he didn’t have to be the one to do this. “This is one of the tales my Granny told me, when I used to huddle with our family around the potbelly stove in the winter. The tale of Ximu is one of the tales we loved and feared most, the one she told to remind us that there were worse things than the mad Cityfolk.”
“Hmph,” Vespa snorted.
“Well, they were mad, you know,” Syrus said defensively. He shook his dark hair from his shoulders, and silver dust glittered around him.
“Go on,” Olivia said.
“Ximu was the great enemy of our people, perhaps the only Elemental who hated us with a passion and sought to exterminate us as much as the Emperor did,” he began. “Far in the north and west, she and her people lived in a city of bone. Her poison could make the most resistant man her slave, and her magic was some of the strongest and darkest this world has ever seen. Far worse than the Grue, if Granny’s tales are true. When our people came here, the leader, Blackwolf, challenged her. He was a warlock and, after much strife, he was able to drive her from the City. Their battles are tales of legend. Sometimes he would win the upper hand; others she would return to defeat him. At last he built an army of mechanical warriors who could not be defeated by her poison or magic. In one final battle our people and the mechanical warriors pushed Ximu and her people into the sea.”
Vespa heard Olivia gasp. She saw the Empress’s pupils dilate, and the shadow of something—a vision or a dream perhaps—flitted across her pale face.
Syrus continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “Blackwolf spent much of his magic placing wards all along the coast to keep her from returning, and his City fell into ruin and disrepair with so many of his people scattered in the war. It’s then that we began wandering over the land, seeking the protection of Greater Elementals, splitting into ever smaller clans.
“When your people arrived and eventually sailed to the island where the xiren had fled, we said nothing. We half hoped it would lead to your deaths. But all it led to was yet more exploitation of the Elementals. We watched and waited to see what would befall you for your foolishness. As Granny often said, ‘We thought then that perhaps our greatest enemy would become our greatest friend.’ Then, reports came that the shadowspiders were no more and that the trade had dried up. Our elders said then that old Ximu had died at last, her magic unwound by being cut off from her palace of bone too long.”
“You’re talking about Scientia, aren’t you?” Bayne asked. “My family’s palace is made of bone and ancient beyond reckoning.”
Syrus nodded. “You call it Scientia now, yes.”
“So,” Vespa asked, “what are the shadowspiders, exactly? I always thought they were just lesser elementals who wove particularly strong silk!”
Syrus shook his head. “My granny always said that the most powerful of the xiren could take human as well as spider form, if they wished. Her Captains can walk in human form and turn others to do her bidding. And that is why it is never wise to taunt a spider.”
“Ah,” Vespa said. “Werespiders.”
“Of course,” Bayne muttered. He twitched his coat closer around his shoulders. Bayne wasn’t overly fond of arachnids to begin with.
“But they have been thought dead for centuries,” Olivia said. “How could they possibly be here now? Are you certain that’s what the kinnon said?”
Syrus nodded. “Her name was his last breath. And the wound on his shoulder looked very much like a spider bite. While I haven’t seen Ximu myself, kinnon do not lie. It’s not in their nature.”
Vespa noticed everyone’s eyes on her. “Yes,” she said. “So all the bestiaries and codices I studied at the Museum said. Their blood, if it can be preserved, is a powerful truth serum.”
“Whatever the case, perhaps we should send an envoy to investigate and to offer the hand of friendship,” Olivia said.
Syrus’s eyes went wide, but it was Bayne who spoke first. “Your Majesty, I really don’t think—”
Olivia’s glance cut him off. “What, Pedant?”
Bayne shook his head. He and Olivia had argued many times before. Both Bayne and Vespa had sensed a growing darkness in the old City, and had tried to persuade Olivia that danger might be present. But she had heard none of it, convinced that it was merely toxic magic of her father’s at last coming to light. “It will be swept away by the new realm of peace we’re creating,” she’d said the last time they’d spoken of it. “Pay it no more mind.”
“Majesty,” Syrus said, his voice soft and deadly calm, “if indeed we are dealing with Ximu, please do not send someone to treat with her. Whoever you send will not come back alive, I promise you.”
Olivia rose, clearly discomfited. She went to the window and pushed away the draperies with a pale hand, looking out onto the dismal sky. “But surely,” she said, “since the New Peace, all has changed. Perhaps she is different. I do not care if she takes the old City. I have no use for it. I am happy to offer it to her.”
Bayne seemed as though he might implode. He threw Vespa a pleading glance.
Vespa rose and went to stand beside Olivia. Vespa looked out across the new City with the muddy streams of its thoroughfares now running through it. She looked beyond it to the treetops of the New Forest and the green edge of the Euclidean Plain. No longer did a Wall shut these things from her sight, and the beauty of it was breathtaking.
Olivia’s gaze drew her back. “You think I am foolish too, don’t you, Vee?”
“None of us think you are foolish, Majesty. Just . . . perhaps . . . a tad naive.” She winced a bit at having to say it aloud, but there it was.
As if catching her thought, Olivia turned, letting the curtain fall, and took her hands. “You know I’ve always valued your honesty.” She looked at Syrus and Bayne. “From each of you, actually. But if we are to have peace, I don’t see how this can be done any other way.”
Bayne stood and bowed. “Majesty, none question your desire for peace. But as I’ve often said, inasmuch as we desire peace, we must also be prepared for its opposite.”
Vespa glanced at him. His restraint was admirable, considering how he’d sometimes ranted to her in private about Olivia’s obstinacy.
Olivia frowned. It was a tiny frown, barely noticeable as frowns go, but Vespa knew what was coming. “Often have we discussed your admonishments that we have a standing army and fortifications, but I ask you: Do not those very preparations declare the opposite of peace to all who observe this new Empire? I do not want it said of me that I promised peace with one hand and gave war with the other!”
Bayne sighed. “Yes, Majesty, we have indeed often spoken of this. And each time I’ve hoped that perhaps some bit of logic or reason would reach your ears . . .”
Olivia stiffened. She dropped Vespa’s hands. “Logic? Reason? Was it not these very things that brought us to where we are today? What of Compassion? What of Honor?”
Emotions chased across Bayne’s face like clouds. “Those are also important, but—”
“Those are the foundation upon which my realm rests, Pedant,” Olivia said. “See you remember it.”
Bayne bowed his head. “Your Majesty.”
“That does not mean, however, that we should not call a Council to learn more. I know the Council of the Equinox was scheduled soon, but I think we should hasten it. Please convene it. In the meantime I will send an envoy across the River. Whom would it be best to send?”
“If you must send someone, let it be us, Your Majesty,” Bayne said. “We are your Unnaturalists, after all. If anyone should investigate such a rumor, it should be us.”
Olivia shook her head. “I would prefer to reserve your skills in case they are needed for further negotiations. And as well known as you are, your presence may threaten whatever is in the old City. You defeated the Grue, after all. You may have enemies.”
“But . . . Majesty, this is preposterous!” Bayne said. “We are the most accomplished, the most powerful—truly the only people in your realm qualified to handle such a creature. Why would you send anyone else?”
Olivia’s mouth was hard. “Because I wish to, Pedant. That is all the answer you require.”
Everyone was silent, not knowing what to say. Vespa saw that Syrus’s head was bent, his hands resting across his knees in defeat.
“Mr. Reed,” Olivia asked. His head snapped up at his name. “Whom shall I send?”
He sighed. “You’d best send someone you don’t mind losing, Majesty. That’s all I can say.”
“No one is expendable, Mr. Reed.”
He stood and looked Olivia in the eye with an expression somewhere between sadness and yearning. “Whoever you send will be.”
Olivia’s mouth thinned. “I am sorry this distresses you, Mr. Reed. That is certainly not my intent.”
He nodded, and the painful silence descended again. Then he said, “I will go, if that is your wish.”
Olivia half smiled. “No. I have need of you here.” A look shot between them, something that Vespa thought she recognized all too well. “There is the matter of that boiler, after all. Is it fixed yet?”
Syrus blushed. Vespa didn’t recall that ever happening before.
“No, Majesty. I’ll get back to it right away.”
“Thank you. Winter is on the march, so they say.”
Syrus bowed.
Vespa feared Ximu wasn’t the only trouble coming their way.