Authors: Scott Lynch
“Waugh,” he said as soon as he was finished. It was a cross between a polite cough
and the last gasp of a dying bird. He pounded on his chest. “Waugh, waugh, waugggggh!”
“Concur,” said Galdo in a harsh whisper. “Love it.”
“All the outward virtues of liquid shit,” said Chains, musing on his empty glass,
“and a taste like pure joy pissed out by happy angels. Mind you, it doesn’t signify
in the world at large. Don’t drink anything else that looks like this unless you want
a swift release from mortal concerns.”
“I wonder,” said Locke, “don’t they ever make wine-colored wine in other cities?”
He stared down into his own glass, which, like the fingers holding it, was beginning
to blur around the edges.
“Some things are much more interesting when alchemists get their hands on them,” said
Chains. “Your head, for example. Black sherry is renowned for kicking like a mule.”
“Yesh, renowned,” said Locke, grinning stupidly. His belly was warm, his head seemed
not to weigh an ounce, and his intentions were disconnected from his actual movements
by a heartbeat interval. He was aware that, if not already drunk, he was headed for
it like a dart thrown at a wall.
“Now, Locke,” said Chains, his voice seeming to come from a distance, “I’ve a few
things to discuss with these three. Perhaps you’d like to get to bed early tonight.”
A sharp pang pierced the bubble of warm contentment that had all but swallowed him.
Go to bed early? Leave the company of Sabetha, whose blurry loveliness he was fixating
on, barely managing to grudge himself the time required to blink every now and then?
“Um,” he said. “Wha?”
“It wasn’t a request, Locke,” said Chains gently. “You’ve a busy evening tomorrow,
I can assure you, and you need all the sleep you can get.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’ll see.” Chains rose, moved around the table, and carefully took Locke’s empty
glass from his hand. Locke looked down in surprise, having forgotten that he’d been
holding it. “Off you go.”
A tiny part of Locke’s mind, the cold wariness that had been his sentry in Shades’
Hill, realized Chains had long planned to send him, happily befuddled, to an early
rest. Even through his wine-induced haze, that stung. He’d been feeling more and more
at home, but no sooner had Sabetha walked through the door than it was Streets and
Windows all over again, and he was packed off to some dark corner without the privileges
enjoyed by the older children.
“I,” he muttered, taking his eyes off Sabetha for the first time in several minutes,
but directing his voice at her. “I will. But … I’m g-glad you’re here.” He felt the
urge to say something else, something weighty and witty that would turn that beautiful
head of hers and fix her attention to him, a mirror of his own. But even drunk he
knew he was more likely to pull rubies out of his ass than he was to speak as older
people spoke, with words that were somehow careful and powerful and right. “Sabetha,”
he half mumbled.
“Thanks,” she said, looking at the table.
“I mean, I knew … you knew I meant you, Sabetha … sorry. I just … I’m glad you’re
not drowned, you know.”
More than anything, at that moment, he just wanted to hear her say his name, call
him anything but “him” or “the Lamora Boy.” Acknowledge his existence … their partnership
in Chains’ gang … gods, he would exile himself to bed early every night if he could
just hear his name come out from between those thin lips of hers.
“Good night,” she said.
LOCKE WOKE
the next day feeling as though the contents of his skull had been popped out and
replaced upside-down.
“Here,” said one of the Sanzas, who happened to be sitting next to Locke’s cot with
a book on his lap. The Sanza (Locke, muddled as he was, could not quite identify which
one) passed over a wooden cup of water. It was lukewarm but clean, and Locke gulped
it down without delicacy, marveling at how parched he felt.
“What time is it?” he croaked when he was finished.
“Must be past noon.”
“Noon? But … my chores …”
“No real work today.” The Sanza stretched and yawned. “No arithmetic. No Catch-the-Duke.
No languages. No dancing.”
“No sitting the steps,” yelled the other Sanza from the next room. “No swordplay.
No knots and ropes. No coins.”
“No music,” said the Sanza with the book. “No manners. No history. No bloody heraldry.”
“What are we doing, then?”
“Calo and I are to make sure you can stand up straight,” said the Sanza with the book.
“Nail you to a plank if we have to.”
“And when that’s done, you’re to do all the dishes.”
“Sabetha …” Locke rubbed his eyes and rolled off his cot. “She’s really one of us?”
“Course she is,” said the Sanza with the book.
“Is she … here right now?”
“Nah. Out with Chains. Looking into things for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“Dunno. All’s we know is the afternoon; and the afternoon, far as you’re concerned,
is dishes.”
THOUGH ENERGETIC
enough when set a task, Calo and Galdo were virtuosos of laziness when left to their
own devices. Between subtle interference and overt clowning, they managed to stretch
the half hour Locke would ordinarily have needed to tend the dishes into nearly three
hours. By the time the secret door to the temple above banged shut behind the returning
Father Chains, Locke’s fingers were wrinkled and bleached from the alchemical polish
he’d been using on the silver.
“Ah,” said Chains. “Good, good. You look more or less among the living. Feeling spry?”
“I suppose,” said Locke.
“We’ve a job tonight. Housebreaking. Windows work, and most of it on your little shoulders.”
Chains patted his broad belly and smirked. “I parted ways with climbing and scampering
some time ago.”
“Windows work?” said Locke, the drudgery of his long afternoon
in the kitchen instantly forgotten. “I … I’d love to. But I thought you, um, didn’t
do that sort of thing.”
“For its own sake, not usually. But I need to find some things out about you, Locke.”
“Oh, good.” Locke felt his excitement cool slightly. “Another test. When do they stop?”
“When you’re buried, my boy.” Chains knelt and gave Locke a friendly squeeze on the
back of his neck. “When you’re under the dirt and colder than a fish’s tits. That’s
when it stops. Now listen.
“I’ve got a tip from a friend at Meraggio’s.” Chains bustled about the kitchen, snatching
up chalk and one of the slates the children used for their lessons. He sketched on
it rapidly. “Seems a certain olive merchant is looking to marry his useless son to
a noble wife. To sweeten the deal sufficiently, he’ll need to put his family splendids
back into circulation.”
“What’s that mean?” said Locke.
“Means he needs to sell his jewels and things,” said Calo.
“Sharp lad. About an hour ago, the merchant’s man left the countinghouse with a lot
of nice old things in a bag. He’s staying at a townhouse in the Razona; just him and
two guards. The old man and a bigger retinue are coming in from his estate tomorrow.
So tonight we have a bit of an opportunity.”
“Why us?” Locke’s excitement was tempered with genuine puzzlement. “If he’s only got
two guards, anyone who wanted to could go in there with a gang.”
“Never in life,” said Chains, chuckling. “Barsavi won’t have it. The Razona’s a quiet
district where doors don’t get kicked in. That’s the Peace. Anybody breaks it, they’re
liable to have their precious bits cut off and stitched to their eyeballs. So instead
of sending in brutes through the door, we send a quiet type through the window.”
Chains turned the slate toward Calo, Galdo, and Locke. The top half was taken up by
a rough diagram of houses and their surrounding streets and alleys. Beneath that was
a sketch of a necklace, with large ovoid shapes dangling from a thick central collar.
Chains tapped one of his fingers against this sketch.
“One piece,” he said. “That’s all we’re after. One from twenty or so,
and they won’t have time to put up much of a fuss about it. A gold necklace with nine
hanging emeralds. Pop out the stones, send them nine different directions, and melt
down the gold. Untraceable profit.”
“How do we do it?” asked Locke.
“Well, that’s half the fun.” Chains scratched at his chin. “You said yourself, it’s
a test. You’ll be working with Sabetha, since she’s had more experience at this sort
of thing. Calo and Galdo will be your top-eyes; that is, watching the area to cover
your ass. I’ll be on the ground nearby, but I won’t be directly involved. My crooked
little wonders get to sort the rest out for themselves.”
Locke’s heart raced. Test or not, a chance to work together with Sabetha on something
exciting? The gods loved him!
“Where is she now?”
“Here.” Chains pointed to a square sketched on the upper portion of the slate. “On
the Via Selaine. Four-story house with a rooftop garden. That’s our target. She’ll
be nearby until dark; at first moonrise she’ll meet you in this alley.” Chains ran
his finger up and down a set of chalk lines, blurring them. “Once the Sanzas are in
position to keep an eye on the street, the rest is up to you and Sabetha.”
“That’s it, then?”
“That’s it. And remember, I want one emerald necklace. I don’t need two, or the deed
to the townhouse, or the bloody crown jewels of Camorr. Tonight’s definitely a night
for you to underachieve.”
FULL CAMORRI
night at last, after a twilight spent nervously fidgeting in an alley, waiting for
Sabetha to make contact. Now Locke was with her, up on the roof of the house next
door to their target, crouched among the old wooden frames and empty pots of a long-untended
garden. It was just past second moonrise, and the wide-open sky was on fire with stars,
ten thousand flickering white eyes staring down at Locke, as though eager to see him
get to work.
Three feet away, a low dark shape against the stone parapet, lay Sabetha. Her only
words to him at their meeting had been “Shut up, keep close, and stay quiet.” He’d
done that, following her up the alley wall of the house they now sat upon, using windowsills
and deep decorative
carvings to haul himself up with little effort. Since then his urge to speak with
her had been overruled by his terror of annoying her, and so he fancied that he’d
done a fine imitation of a corpse from the moment they’d arrived. When she finally
did speak, her soft voice actually startled him.
“I think they’ve gone to sleep at last.”
“Wh-what? Who?”
“The three old women who live here.” Sabetha set her head against the stones of the
rooftop and listened for several moments. “They sleep on the second floor, but it
never hurts to be careful.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“Never worked a roof before. Isn’t that the case, boy?” Sabetha moved slightly, and
so quietly that Locke couldn’t hear a single ruffle of her dark tunic and trousers.
She peeked over the parapet for no more than the span of a few heartbeats, then crouched
back down.
“I, um, no. Not like this.”
“Well, think you can confine yourself to stealing just what we’ve been sent for? Or
should I have the yellowjackets rouse out bucket-lines in case you burn the Razona
down?”
“I—I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be careful.”
“Whatever I say?” Her face was in silvery-gray shadow, but her eyes caught the starlight
as she turned to him, so he could see them clearly. “You mean it?”
“Oh, yes.” Locke nodded several times. “On my heart. Come hell or Eldren-fire.”
“Good. You might not fuck this up, then.” She gestured toward the parapet. “Move slow.
Raise up just high enough to get your eyes over the edge. Take a good look.”
Locke peeked out over the southern parapet of the townhouse; their target house with
its thick rooftop garden was to his right, and four stories below him was a clean
stretch of cobbled road washed with moonlight. The Razona seemed a gentle, quiet place—no
drunks sprawled in gutters, no tavern doors banging constantly open and closed, no
yellowjackets moving in squads with truncheons drawn and shields out. Dozens of alchemical
globes burned at street level, behind windows and above doors, like bunches of fiery
fruit. Only the alleys and rooftops seemed wrapped in anything like real darkness.
“You see Calo and Galdo?” asked Sabetha.
“No.”
“Good. That means they’re where they should be. If something goes wrong—if a squad
of yellowjackets shows up in the street, let’s say—those two will start hollering
‘The master wants more wine, the master wants more wine.’ ”
“What then?”
“They run, and we do likewise.” Sabetha crawled over beside him, and Locke felt his
breath catch in his throat. Her next words were spoken into his ear. “First rule of
roof work is, know how you’re getting down. Do you?”
“Um, same way we came?”
“Too slow. Too risky. Climbing down at speed is more dangerous than going up, especially
at night.” She pointed to a thin gray line in the middle of the roof, a line that
Locke’s eyes followed to a mess of pots and broken trellises. “I anchored that line
when I came up. Demisilk, should get us down to five feet off the ground. If we need
to run, throw it over the edge, slide down as fast as you can, and leave it behind.
Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now, look across here.” She nudged his head up above the parapet again, and pointed
at an alley across the street. “That’s the escape route. You’ll have to cross the
road, but one of the Sanzas should be in cover there watching for you. Chains is another
block or two past that. If it all goes to hell, find a Sanza. Understand?”
“Yeah. But what if we don’t get caught?”
“Same plan, boy. We just do it slower. Ready?”
“Sure. Whenever you say. How do we, um, get across?”
“Fire plank.” Sabetha crawled toward the parapet facing their target house, beckoning
for him to follow. She gently tapped a long wooden board that rested snug against
the stone wall. “In case the place burns up beneath you, you swing it across to the
neighbors and hope they like you.”