Authors: Scott Lynch
“Yes!”
“Your oath before the gods?”
“Upon my lips and upon my heart, before the gods, or strike me dead and find me wantin’
on the scales of the Lady of the Long Silence.”
“Good enough. Remember. Now fuck off in the direction of your choice, so long as it
isn’t back toward our carriage.”
Jean and Locke watched him scamper away for a minute or two, until his cloaked figure
had faded from view behind the shifting gray curtains of the downpour.
“Well,” said Jean, “I think that’s enough practice for one day, don’t you?”
“Absolutely. The actual Sinspire job’ll be a bloody ballroom dance compared to this.
What say we just grab the two spare coils of rope and make for the carriage? Let Trav
spend the rest of the afternoon out here untying knots.”
“A lovely plan.” Jean inspected his Wicked Sisters, recovered from the edge of the
cliff, and gave them a possessive pat on their blades before slipping them into his
coat pocket. “There, darlings. That ass might have dulled you a bit, but I’ll soon
have you sharpened up again.”
“I hardly credit it,” said Locke. “Nearly murdered by some halfwit country mudsucker.
You know, I do believe that’s the first time since Vel Virazzo that anyone’s actually
tried to kill either of us.”
“Seems about right. Eighteen months?” Jean slipped one wet coil of rope around his
shoulder and passed the other to Locke. Together, they turned and began to trudge
back through the forest. “Nice to know that some things never really change, isn’t
it?”
“WHOEVER PUT THOSE ASSASSINS THERE obviously knew we used that path to get back to
the Savrola,” said Locke.
“Which doesn’t mean all that much; we’ve used the docks often. Anyone could have seen
us, and set them there to wait.” Jean sipped his coffee and ran one hand idly over
the battered leather cover of the small book he’d brought to breakfast. “Maybe for
several nights. It wouldn’t require any special knowledge or resources.”
The Gilded Cloister was even quieter than usual at the seventh hour of the morning
this Throne’s Day. Most of the revelers and businessfolk who provided its custom would
have been up late on the Golden Steps, and would not rise for several hours. By unspoken
consent, Locke and Jean’s breakfast this morning was designed for nervous nibbling:
cold fillets of pickled shark meat with lemon, black bread and butter, some sort of
brownish fish broiled in orange juice, and coffee—the largest ceramic pot the waiter
could find to bring to the table. Both thieves were still having trouble adjusting
to the sudden turnaround in their nights and days.
“Unless the Bondsmagi tipped
another
party off to our presence here in Tal Verrar,” said Locke. “They might even be helping
them.”
“If the Bondsmagi had been helping those two on the docks, do you really think we’d
have survived? Come on. Both of us knew they were probably going to come after us
for what we did to the Falconer, and if they just wanted us dead, we’d be smoked meat.
Stragos is right about one thing—they must mean to toy with us. So I still say it’s
more likely that some third
party took offense at something we’ve done as Kosta and de Ferra. That makes Durenna,
Corvaleur, and Lord Landreval the obvious suspects.”
“Landreval’s been gone for months.”
“That doesn’t rule him out completely. The lovely ladies, then.”
“I just … I honestly believe they’d come after us themselves—Durenna has a reputation
with a sword, and I hear that Corvaleur’s been in a few duels. Maybe they’d hire some
help, but they’re hands-on sorts.”
“Did we bilk anyone important at Blind Alliances? Or some
other
game when we were playing our way up through the floors? Step on someone’s toe? Fart
noisily?”
“I can’t imagine that we’d have missed someone disgruntled enough to hire assassins.
Nobody likes to lose at cards, to be sure, but do any really sore losers stick out
in memory?”
Jean scowled and sipped his coffee. “Until we know more, this speculation is useless.
Everyone in the city is a suspect. Hell, everyone in the world.”
“So in truth,” said Locke, “all we really know is that whoever it is wanted us dead.
Not scared off, not brought in for a little chat. Plain old dead. Maybe if we can
ponder that, we might come up with a few—”
Locke stopped speaking the instant he saw their waitress approaching their booth—then
looked more closely and saw that it wasn’t their waitress at all. The woman wearing
the leather apron and red cap was Merrain.
“Ah,” said Jean. “Time to settle the bill.”
Merrain nodded, and handed Locke a wooden tablet with two small pieces of paper pinned
to it. One was indeed the bill; the other had a single line written on it in flowing
script:
Remember the first place I took you the night we met? Don’t waste time
.
“Well,” said Locke, passing the note to Jean, “we’d love to stay, but the quality
of the service has sharply declined. Don’t expect a gratuity.” He counted copper coins
onto the wooden tablet, then stood up. “Same old place as usual, Jerome.”
Merrain collected the wooden tablet and the money, bowed, and vanished in the direction
of the kitchens.
“I hope she doesn’t take offense about the tip,” said Jean when they were out on the
street. Locke glanced around in every direction, and noticed that Jean was doing likewise.
Locke’s sleeve-stilettos were a comforting weight inside each arm of his coat, and
he had no doubt that Jean was ready to produce the Wicked Sisters with a twitch of
his wrists.
“Gods,” Locke muttered. “We should be back in our beds, sleeping the day away. Have
we ever been
less
in control of our lives than we are at this
moment? We can’t run away from the archon and his poison, which means we can’t just
disengage from the Sinspire game. Gods know we can’t even see the Bondsmagi lurking,
and we’ve suddenly got assassins coming out of our assholes. Know something? I’d lay
even odds that between the people following us and the people hunting us, we’ve become
this city’s principal means of employment. Tal Verrar’s entire economy is now based
on
fucking with us
.”
It was a short walk, if a nervous one, to the crossroads just north of the Gilded
Cloister. Cargo wagons clattered across the cobbles and trades-folk walked placidly
to their jobs. As far as they knew, Locke thought, the Savrola was the quietest, best-guarded
neighborhood in the city, a place where nothing worse than the occasional drunk foreigner
ever disturbed the calm.
Locke and Jean turned left at the intersection, then approached the door of the first
disused shop on their right. While Jean kept a watch on the street behind them, Locke
stepped up to the door and rapped sharply, three times. It opened immediately, and
a stout young man in a brown leather coat beckoned them in.
“Stay away from the window,” he said once he’d closed and bolted the door behind them.
The window was covered with tightly drawn sailcloth curtains, but Locke agreed that
there was no need to tempt fate. The only light in the room came from the sunrise,
filtered soft pink through the curtains, enabling Locke to see two pairs of men waiting
at the rear of the shop. Each pair consisted of one heavy, broad-shouldered man and
one smaller man, and all four of the strangers were wearing identical gray cloaks
and broad-brimmed gray hats.
“Get dressed,” said the man in the leather coat, pointing to a pile of clothing on
a small table. Locke and Jean were soon outfitted in their own matching gray cloaks
and hats.
“New summer fashion for Tal Verrar?” said Locke.
“A little game for anyone trying to follow you,” said the man. He snapped his fingers,
and one set of gray-clad strangers moved to stand right behind the door. “I’ll go
out first. You stand behind these two, follow them out, then enter the third carriage.
Understood?”
“What carri—” Locke started to say, but he cut himself off as he heard the clatter
of hooves and wheels in the street immediately outside. Shadows passed before the
window, and after a few seconds the man in the brown coat unbolted the door. “Third
carriage. Move fast,” he said without turning around, and then he threw the door open
and was out into the street.
At the curb just outside the disused shop three identical carriages were
lined up. Each was black lacquered wood with no identifying crests or banners, each
had heavy drapes drawn over its windows, and each was pulled by two black horses.
Even their drivers all looked vaguely similar, and wore the same reddish uniforms
under leather overcoats.
The first pair of gray strangers stepped out the door and hurried to the first carriage
in line. Locke and Jean left the disused shop a second later, hurrying to the rear
carriage. Locke caught a glimpse of the last team of gray strangers all but running
to the door of the middle carriage behind them. Jean worked the latch on the rear
carriage’s door, held it open for Locke, and flung himself inside afterward.
“Welcome aboard, gentlemen.” Merrain lounged in the right forward corner of the compartment,
her waitress’ clothing discarded. She was now dressed as though for a ride in an open
saddle, in field boots, black breeches, a red silk shirt, and a leather vest. Locke
and Jean settled beside one another in the seat across from her. Jean’s slamming of
the door threw them into semidarkness, and the carriage lurched into motion.
“Where the hell are we going?” Locke began to shrug off his gray cloak as he spoke.
“Leave that on, Master Kosta. You’ll need it when we get out again. First we’ll all
tour the Savrola for a bit. Then we’ll split—one carriage to the Golden Steps, one
to the northern edge of the Great Gallery, and us to the docks to catch a boat.”
“A boat to where?”
“Don’t be impatient. Sit back and enjoy the ride.”
That was difficult, to say the least, in the hot and stuffy compartment. Locke felt
sweat running down his brow, and he grumpily removed his hat and held it in his lap.
He and Jean attempted to pelt Merrain with questions, but she answered with nothing
but noncommittal “hmmms” until they gave up. Tedious minutes passed. Locke felt the
carriage rattling around several corners, then down a series of inclines that had
to be the ramp from the upper heights of the Savrola to the sea-level docks.
“We’re almost there,” said Merrain after another few minutes had passed in uncomfortable,
jouncing silence. “Hats back on. When the carriage stops, go straight to the boat.
Take your seat at the rear, and for the gods’ sake, if you see anything dangerous,
duck.”
True to her word, the carriage rattled to a halt just a few heartbeats later. Locke
planted his hat over his hair once again, fumbled for the door mechanism, and squinted
as it opened into bright morning light.
“Out,” said Merrain. “Don’t waste time.”
They were down on the interior docks at the very northeastern tip of
the Savrola, with a sheer wall of black Elderglass behind them and several dozen anchored
ships on the gleaming, choppy water before them. One boat was lashed to the nearest
pier, a sleek gig about forty feet long, with a raised and enclosed gallery at the
stern. Two lines of rowers, five to a side, filled most of the rest of its space.
Locke hopped down from the carriage and led the way toward the boat, past a pair of
alert men wearing cloaks as heavy as his own, quite inappropriate for the weather.
They were standing at near attention, not lounging, and Locke caught a glimpse of
a sword hilt barely hidden beneath one cloak.
He all but scampered up the flimsy ramp to the boat, hopped down into it, and threw
himself onto the bench at the rear of the passenger gallery. The gallery, fortunately,
was only enclosed on three sides; a decent forward view of their next little voyage
would be vastly preferable to another trip inside a dark box. Jean was close behind
him, but Merrain turned right, climbed through the mass of rowers, and seated herself
in the coxswain’s position at the bow.
The soldiers on the dock rapidly pulled back the ramp, unlashed the boat, and gave
it a good push away from the dock with their legs. “Pull,” said Merrain, and the rowers
exploded into action. Soon the boat was creaking to their steady rhythm and knifing
across the little waves of Tal Verrar’s harbor.
Locke took the opportunity to study the men and women at the oars—they were all leanly
muscled, all with hair neatly trimmed short, most with fairly visible scars. Not one
of them looked to be younger than their midthirties. Veteran soldiers, then. Possibly
even Eyes without their masks and cloaks.
“I have to say, Stragos’ people put on a good production,” said Jean. He then raised
his voice. “Hey! Merrain! Can we take these ridiculous clothes off?”
She turned only long enough to nod, and then returned her attention to the waters
of the harbor. Locke and Jean eagerly removed their hats and cloaks, and piled the
clothing on the deck at their feet.
The ride across the water took about a third of an hour, as near as Locke could tell.
He would have preferred to be free to study the harbor in all directions, but what
he could see out the open front of the gallery revealed enough. First they headed
southwest, following the curve of the inner docks, past the Great Gallery and the
Golden Steps. Then they turned south, putting the open sea on their right, and sped
toward a huge crescent island of a like size with the one on which the Sinspire sat.
Tal Verrar’s southwestern crescent wasn’t tiered. It was more like a naturally irregular
hillside, studded with a number of stone towers and battlements. The huge stone quays
and long wooden docks at its northwestern tip comprised the Silver Marina, where commercial
vessels could put in for repairs or refitting. But past that, past the bobbing shapes
of old galleons waiting for new masts or sails, lay a series of tall gray walls that
formed enclosed bays. The tops of these walls supported round towers where the dark
shapes of catapults and patrolling soldiers could be seen. The bow of their boat was
soon pointed at the nearest of these huge stone enclosures.