Authors: Scott Lynch
“My business here will be … shortly concluded.”
“All for the better, then. But perhaps your business at the Amusement War might be
curtailed even sooner. I’m not the only one who’s taken an interest in you. Lady Saljesca’s
guards are … sensitive about discontent.
Above
the arena floor as well as on it.”
I could leave you penniless and sobbing, whispered the voice in Locke’s head. I could
have you pawning your piss-buckets to keep your creditors from slitting your throat.
“Forgive me, my lord. I will take what you say most seriously,” muttered Locke. “I
doubt … that I shall trouble anyone here again.”
ON THE morning of Locke’s ninth day in Salon Corbeau, the Baumondains were finished
with his chairs.
“They look magnificent,” said Locke, running his fingers lightly over the lacquered
wood and padded leather. “Very fine, as fine as I had reason to hope. And the … additional
features?”
“Built to your specifications, Master Fehrwight.
Exactly
to your specifications.” Lauris stood beside her father in the Baumondain workshop
while ten-year-old Parnella was struggling to brew tea over an alchemical hearthstone,
at a corner table covered in unidentifiable tools and half-empty jars of woodworking
oils. Locke made a mental note to smell any tea offered to him very carefully before
drinking.
“You have outdone yourselves, all of you.”
“We were, ah, financially inspired, Master Fehrwight,” said the elder Baumondain.
“I like building weird things,” Parnella added from the corner.
“Heh. Yes, I suppose these would qualify.” Locke stared at his suite of four matching
chairs and sighed in mingled relief and aggravation. “Well, then. If you’d be so kind
as to ready them for transport, I shall hire two carriages and take my leave this
afternoon.”
“In that much of a hurry to leave?”
“I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that every unnecessary moment I spend in this place
weighs on me. Salon Corbeau and I do not agree.” Locke removed a leather purse from
his coat pocket and tossed it to Master Baumondain. “An additional twenty solari.
For your silence, and for these chairs to never have existed. Is this clear?”
“I … well, I’m sure we can accommodate your request.… I must say, your generosity
is—”
“A subject that needs no further discussion. Humor me, now. I’ll be gone soon enough.”
So that’s all, said the voice in Locke’s head. Stick to the plan. Leave this all behind,
and do nothing, and return to Tal Verrar with my tail between my legs.
While he and Jean enriched themselves at Requin’s expense and cheated their way up
the luxurious floors of the Sinspire, on the stone floor of Lady Saljesca’s arena
the defaults would go on, and the faces of the spectators would be the same, day after
day. Children tearing the wings from insects to laugh at how they flailed and bled … and
stepping on one every now and again.
“Thieves prosper,” muttered Locke under his breath. He tightened his neck-cloths and
prepared to go summon his carriages, feeling sick to his stomach.
THE GLASS-FRONTED TRANSPORT BOX erupted out of the Mon Magisteria’s waterfall once
again and slid home with a lurch just inside the palace. Water hissed through iron
pipes, the high gates behind the box slammed shut, and the attendants pushed the front
doors open for Locke, Jean, and Merrain.
A dozen Eyes of the Archon were waiting for them in the entrance hall. They fell in
wordlessly on either side of Locke and Jean as Merrain led them forward.
Though not to the same office as before, it seemed. Locke glanced around from time
to time as they passed through dimly lit halls and up twisting staircases. The Mon
Magisteria was truly more fortress than palace; the walls outside the grand hall were
devoid of decoration, and the air smelled mainly of humidity, sweat, leather, and
weapon oils. Water rumbled through unseen channels behind the walls. Occasionally
they would troop past servants, who would stand with their backs to the wall and their
heads bowed toward their feet until the Eyes were past.
Merrain led them to an iron-reinforced door in a nondescript corridor several floors
up from the entrance. Faint silver moonlight could be seen rippling through an arched
window at the far end of the hall.… Locke squinted and realized that a stream of water
from the palace’s circling aqueducts was falling down the glass.
Merrain pounded on the door three times. When it opened with a click, allowing a crack
of soft yellow light into the hall, she dismissed the Eyes
with a wave of her hand. As they marched away down the corridor, she pushed the door
open slightly and pointed toward it with her other hand.
“At last. I might have hoped to see you sooner. You must have been away from your
usual haunts when Merrain found you.” Stragos looked up from where he sat, on one
of only two chairs in the small, bare room, and shuffled the papers he’d been examining.
His bald attendant sat on the other with several files in hand, saying nothing.
“They were having a bit of trouble on the inner docks of the Great Gallery,” said
Merrain as she closed the door behind Locke and Jean. “A pair of fairly motivated
assassins.”
“Really?” Stragos seemed genuinely annoyed. “What business might that be in relation
to?”
“I only wish we knew,” said Locke. “Our chance for an interrogation took a crossbow
bolt in the chest when Merrain showed up.”
“The woman was about to stick one of these two with a poisoned knife, Protector. I
thought you’d prefer to have them both intact for the time being.”
“Hmmm. A pair of assassins. Were you at the Sinspire tonight?”
“Yes,” said Jean.
“Well, it wouldn’t be Requin, then. He’d simply have taken you while you were there.
So it’s some other business. Something you should have told me about before, Kosta?”
“Oh, begging your pardon, Archon. I thought that between your little friends the Bondsmagi
and all the spies you must have slinking about at our backsides, you’d know more than
you do.”
“This is serious, Kosta. I aim to make use of you; it doesn’t suit my needs to have
someone else’s vendetta on my hands. You don’t know who might have sent them?”
“Truthfully, we have no bloody clue.”
“You left the bodies of these assassins on the docks?”
“The constables have them by now, surely,” said Merrain.
“They’ll throw the bodies in the Midden Deep, but first they’ll inter them at the
death-house for a day or two,” said Stragos. “I want someone down there to have a
look at them. Note their descriptions, plus any tattoos or other markings that might
be meaningful.”
“Of course,” said Merrain.
“Tell the officer of the watch to see to that now. You’ll know where to find me when
you’re finished.”
“Your will … Archon.” Merrain looked as though she might say something else, then
turned, opened the door, and hurried out.
“You called me Kosta,” said Locke when the door had slammed closed once again. “She
doesn’t know our real names, does she? Curious. Don’t you trust your people, Stragos?
Seems like it’d be easy enough to get your hooks into them the same way you got them
into us.”
“I’ll wager,” said Jean, “that you never take up your master’s offer of a friendly
drink when you’re off duty, eh, baldy?” Stragos’ attendant scowled but still said
nothing.
“By all means,” said Stragos lightly, “taunt my personal alchemist, the very man responsible
for me ‘getting my hooks into you,’ not to mention the preparation of your antidotes.”
The bald man smiled thinly. Locke and Jean cleared their throats and shuffled their
feet in unison, a habit they’d synchronized as boys.
“You seem a reasonable fellow,” said Locke. “And I for one have always found a hairless
brow to be a noble thing, sensible in every climate.…”
“Shut up, Lamora. Do we have the people we need, then?” Stragos passed his papers
over to his attendant.
“Yes, Archon. Forty-four of them, all told. I’ll see that they’re moved by tomorrow
evening.”
“Good. Leave us the vials and you may go.”
The man nodded and gathered his papers. He handed two small glass vials over to the
archon, then left without another word, sliding the door respectfully closed behind
him.
“Well, you two.” Stragos sighed. “You seem to attract attention, don’t you? You’re
certain you’ve
no
idea who else might be trying to kill you? Some old score to settle from Camorr?”
“There are so
many
old scores to settle,” said Locke.
“There would be, wouldn’t there? Well, my people will continue to protect you as best
they can. You two, however, will have to be more … circumspect.”
“That sentiment is not exactly unprecedented,” said Locke.
“Confine your movements to the Golden Steps and the Savrola until further notice.
I’ll have extra people placed on the inner docks; use those when you must travel.”
“Gods damn it, we can
not
operate like that! For a few days, perhaps, but not for the rest of our stay in Tal
Verrar, however long it might be.”
“In that, you’re more right than you know, Locke. But if someone else is after you,
I can’t let it interfere with my needs. Curtail your movements or I’ll have them curtailed
for you.”
“You said there’d be no further complication of our game with Requin!”
“No, I said that the
poison
wouldn’t further complicate your game with Requin.”
“You seem pretty confident of our good behavior for a man who’s all alone with us
in a little stone room,” said Jean, taking a step forward. “Your alchemist’s not coming
back, is he? Nor Merrain?”
“Should I be worried? You’ve absolutely nothing to gain by harming me.”
“Except immense personal satisfaction,” said Locke. “You
presume
that we’re in our right minds. You
presume
that we give a shit about your precious poison, and that we wouldn’t tear you limb
from limb on general principle and take the consequences afterward.”
“Must we do this?” Stragos remained seated, one leg crossed over the other, a mildly
bored expression on his face. “It occurred to me that the two of you might be stubborn
enough to nurse a bit of mutiny in your hearts. So listen carefully—if you leave this
room without me, the Eyes in the hall outside will kill you on sight. And if you otherwise
harm me in any way, I repeat my earlier promise. I’ll revisit the same harm on one
of you, tenfold, while the other is forced to watch.”
“You,” said Locke, “are a goat-faced wad of slipskinner’s shit.”
“Anything’s possible,” said Stragos. “But if you’re thoroughly in my power, pray tell
me, what does that make you?”
“Downright embarrassed,” muttered Locke.
“Very likely. Can you, both of you, set aside this childish need to avenge your self-regard
and accept the mission I have for you? Will you hear the plan and keep civil tongues?”
“Yes.” Locke closed his eyes and sighed. “I suppose we truly have no choice. Jean?”
“I wish I didn’t have to agree.”
“Just so long as you do.” Stragos stood up, opened the door to the corridor, and beckoned
for Locke and Jean to follow. “My Eyes will see you along to my gardens. I have something
I want to show the two of you … while we speak more privately about your mission.”
“What exactly do you intend to do with us?” asked Jean.
“Simply put, I have a navy riding at anchor in the Sword Marina, accomplishing little.
Inasmuch as I still depend on the Priori to help pay and provision it, I can’t send
it out in force without a proper excuse.” Stragos smiled. “So I’m going to send
you two
out onto the sea to find that excuse for me.”
“Out to
sea
?” said Locke. “Are you out of your fu—”
“Take them to my garden,” said Stragos, spinning on his heel.
IT WAS less a garden than a forest, stretching for what must have been hundreds of
yards on the northern side of the Mon Magisteria. Hedges entwined with softly glowing
Silver Creeper vines marked the paths between the swaying blackness of the trees;
by some natural alchemy the vines shed enough artificial moonlight for the two thieves
and their guards to step easily along the gravel paths. The moons themselves were
out, but had now fallen behind the looming fifteen-story darkness of the palace itself
and could not be seen from Locke and Jean’s position.
The perfumed air was humid and heavy; there was rain lurking in the creeping arc of
clouds enclosing the eastern sky. There was a buzzing flutter of unseen wings from
the darkness of the trees, and here and there pale gold and scarlet lights seemed
to drift around the trunks like some fairy mischief.
“Lantern beetles,” said Jean, mesmerized despite himself.
“Think on how much dirt they must have had to haul up here, to cover the Elderglass
deeply enough to let these trees grow …,” whispered Locke.
“It’s good to be a duke,” said Jean. “Or an archon.”
At the center of the garden was a low structure like a boathouse, lit by hanging alchemical
lanterns in the heraldic blue of Tal Verrar. Locke heard the faint lapping of water
against stone, and soon enough saw that there was a dark channel perhaps twenty feet
wide cut into the ground just beyond the little structure. It meandered into the darkness
of the forest-garden like a miniature river. In fact, Locke realized, the lantern-lit
structure
was
a boathouse.
More guards appeared out of the darkness, a team of four being half led and half dragged
by two massive black dogs in armored harnesses. These creatures, waist-high at the
shoulders and nearly as broad, bared their fangs and sniffed disdainfully at the two
thieves, then snorted and pulled their handlers along into the archon’s garden.