Authors: Scott Lynch
During those few minutes, Locke became intimately acquainted with the idea of “a short
eternity.” Finally, there came the creak of footsteps on the stairs, and a loud banging
on the door.
“Lamora!” Anjais Barsavi’s voice. “Tannen! Open up or I’ll kick the damn door in!”
“Thank the gods,” croaked Locke as Jean rose to unbolt the door.
“We’ve been waiting out front of the Last Mistake! Are you coming or … Gods, what
the hell happened in here?”
Anjais threw one arm up over his face as he stepped into the apartment and the smell
of sickness. Jean pointed to Locke, writhing on the bed, moaning, half wrapped in
a thin blanket despite the moist heat of the evening.
“He took ill just half an hour ago, maybe,” said Jean. “Losing his stomach all over
the damn place. I don’t know what’s the matter.”
“Gods, he’s turning green.” Anjais took a few steps closer to Locke, staring in horrified
sympathy. He was dressed for a fight, with a boiled leather cuirass, an unbuckled
leather collar, and a pair of studded leather bracers tied over his hamlike forearms.
Several men had accompanied him up the stairs, but none of them seemed in any hurry
to follow him into the rooms.
“I had capon for lunch,” said Jean, “and he had fish rolls. That’s the last thing
either of us ate, and I’m fine.”
“Iono’s piss. Fish rolls. Fresher than he bargained for, I’d wager.”
“Anjais,” Locke croaked, reaching out toward him with a shaking hand. “Don’t … don’t
leave me. I can still go. I can still fight.”
“Gods, no.” Anjais shook his head emphatically. “You’re in a bad way, Lamora. I think
you’d best see a physiker. Have you summoned one, Tannen?”
“I haven’t had a chance. I fetched out the buckets and I’ve been looking after him
since it started.”
“Well, keep it up. Both of you stay. No, don’t get angry, Jean; he clearly can’t be
left on his own. Stay and tend him. Fetch a physiker when you can.”
Anjais gave Locke two brief pats on his exposed shoulder.
“We’ll get the fucker tonight, Locke. No worries. We’ll do him for good, and I’ll
send someone to look in on you when we’re done. I’ll square this with Papa; he’ll
understand.”
“Please … please, Jean can help me stand, I can still—”
“End of discussion. You can’t fucking stand up; you’re sick as a fish dropped in a
wine bottle.” Anjais backed toward the door and gave Locke a brief, sympathetic wave
before he ducked out. “If I get my hands on the bastard personally, I’ll deck him
once for you, Locke. Rest easy.”
Then the door slammed, and Locke and Jean were alone once again.
LONG MINUTES passed; Jean unshuttered the canal-side window and stared out into the
glimmer of Falselight. He watched as Anjais and his men broke loose from the crowds
below, then hurried across a Via Camorrazza catbridge and into the Arsenal District.
Anjais didn’t look back even once, and soon enough he was swallowed up by shadows
and distance.
“Long gone. Can I help you out of …,” Jean said, turning away from the window. Locke
had already stumbled out of bed and was splashing water on the alchemical hearthstone,
looking ten years older and twenty pounds thinner. That was alarming; Locke didn’t
have twenty pounds to spare.
“Lovely. The least complicated, least important job of the night is done. Carry on,
Gentlemen Bastards,” said Locke. His face was alight in the reflected glow of the
simmering stone as he set a glazed jug of water atop it. Ten years older? More like
twenty. “Now for the tea, gods bless it, and it had better be as good as the purple
powder.”
Jean grimaced and grabbed the two vomit buckets Locke had used, then moved back to
the window. Falselight was dying down now; the Hangman’s Wind was blowing up warm
and strong, bringing a low ceiling of dark clouds with it, visible just past the Five
Towers. The moons would be swallowed by those clouds tonight, at least for a few hours.
Pinpricks of firelight were appearing across the city as though an unseen jeweler
were setting his wares out on a field of black cloth.
“Jessaline’s little potion seems to have brought up every meal I’ve had
in the past five years,” said Locke. “Nothing left to spit up but my naked soul. Make
sure it isn’t floating around in one of those before you toss them, right?” His hands
shook as he crumbled the dry Somnay pine bark right into the jug of water; he didn’t
feel like messing about with proper tea-brewing.
“I think I see it,” Jean said. “Nasty, crooked little thing it is, too; you’re better
off with it floating out to sea.”
Jean took a quick glance out the window to ensure that there were no canal boats drifting
below in the path of a truly foul surprise, then simply flung the buckets, one after
the other. They hit the gray water seventy-odd feet below with loud splashes, but
Jean was certain nobody noticed or cared. Camorri were always throwing disgusting
things into the Via Camorrazza.
Satisfied with his aim, Jean then slid the hidden closet open and pulled out their
disguises—cheap traveler’s cloaks and a pair of broad-brimmed Tal Verrar caps fashioned
from some ignoble leather with the greasy texture of sausage casings. He flung one
brownish gray cloak over Locke’s shoulders; Locke clutched at it gratefully and shivered.
“You’ve got that motherly concern in your eyes, Jean. I must look like hammered shit.”
“Actually, you look like you were executed last week. I hate to ask, but are you
sure
you’re going to be up for this?”
“Whatever I am, it has to be sufficient.” Locke wrapped one end of his cloak around
his right hand and picked up the jug of half-boiled tea. He sipped and swallowed,
bark and all, reasoning that the best place for the stuff would be his empty stomach.
“Ugh. It tastes like a kick in the gut feels. Have I pissed Jessaline off recently,
too?”
His expression was picturesque, as though the skin of his face were trying to peel
itself back and leap off his bones, but he continued to choke the near tea down anyway.
Jean steadied him by placing both hands on his shoulders, privately afraid that another
bout of vomiting might be more than Locke could handle.
After a few minutes, Locke set the empty jug down and sighed deeply.
“I can’t
wait
to have words with the Gray King when this shit is all finished,” Locke whispered.
“There’s a few things I want to ask him. Philosophical questions. Like, ‘How does
it feel to be dangled out a window by a rope tied around your balls, motherfucker?’ ”
“Sounds more like physik than philosophy. But as you said, we have to
wait for the Falconer to leave first.” Jean’s voice was steady and totally empty of
emotion; the voice he always used when discussing a plan only loosely tethered to
prudence and sanity. “Pity we can’t just blindside the bastard from an alley.”
“Couldn’t give him so much as a second to think, or we’d
lose
.”
“Anything less than twenty yards,” mused Jean. “One good throw with a Wicked Sister.
Wouldn’t take but half a second.”
“But you and I both know,” Locke replied slowly, “that we can’t kill a Bondsmage.
We wouldn’t live out the week. Karthain would make examples of us, plus Calo, Galdo,
and Bug as well. Not very clever at all, that way out. A drawn-out suicide.”
Locke stared down at the fading glow of the hearthstone and rubbed his hands together.
“I wonder, Jean. I really wonder. Is this what other people feel like when we’re through
with them? After we get the goods and pull the vanish and there’s nothing they can
do
about it?”
The light from the hearthstone sank several stages further before Jean answered.
“I thought we’d agreed long ago that they get what they deserve, Locke. Nothing more.
This is a
fantastically
silly moment to start giving a shit.”
“Giving a shit?” Locke started, blinking as though he had just woken up. “No, don’t
get me wrong. It’s just this sewn-up feeling. ‘No way out’ is for other people, not
for the Gentlemen Bastards. I don’t like being trapped.”
At a sudden gesture from Locke, Jean pulled him to his feet. Jean wasn’t sure if the
tea was any more responsible than the cloak, but Locke was no longer shivering.
“Too right,” Locke continued, his voice gaining strength. “Too
right
I don’t like it. Let’s get this shit job over with. We can have a good ponder on
the subject of our favorite gray rat-fucker and his pet mage after I’ve danced to
their little tune.”
Jean grinned and cracked his knuckles, then ran a hand down the small of his back.
The old familiar gesture, making sure that the Wicked Sisters were ready for a night
out.
“You sure,” he said, “that you’re ready for the Vine Highway?”
“Ready as I can be, Jean. Hell, I weigh considerably less than I did before I drank
that potion. Climbing down’ll be the easiest thing I do all night.”
THE TRELLIS ran up the full height of the Broken Tower, on the westward face of the
structure, overlooking a narrow alley. The lattice of wood was threaded with tough
old vines and built around the windows on each floor. Though something of a bitch
to climb, it was the perfect way to avoid the few dozen familiar faces that were sure
to be in the Last Mistake on any given night. The Gentlemen Bastards used the Vine
Highway frequently.
The alley-side shutters banged open on the top floor of the Broken Tower; all the
light inside Locke and Jean’s suite of rooms had been extinguished. A large dark shape
slid out into the mass of trellised vines, and was shortly followed by a smaller shape.
Clinging with white-knuckled determination, Locke gently eased the shutters closed
above him, then willed his queasy stomach to quit complaining for the duration of
the climb. The Hangman’s Wind, on its way out to the salty blackness of the Iron Sea,
caught at his cap and cloak with invisible fingers that smelled of marshes and farmers’
fields.
Jean kept himself two or three feet under Locke, and they descended steadily, one
foothold or handhold at a time. The windows on the sixth floor were shuttered and
dark.
Thin slivers of amber light could be seen around the shutters on the fifth floor.
Both climbers slowed without the need for words and willed themselves to be as quiet
as possible; to be patches of gray invisible against deeper darkness, nothing more.
They continued down.
The fifth-floor shutters flew outward as Jean was abreast with them on their left.
One hinged panel rebounded off his back, almost startling him out of his hold on the
trellis. He curled his fingers tightly around wood and vine, and looked to his right.
Locke stepped on his head in surprise, but quickly pulled himself back up.
“I know there’s no other way out, you miserable bitch!” hissed a man’s voice.
There was a loud thump, and then a shudder ran up and down the trellis; someone
else
had just gone out the window, and was scrabbling in the vines beside and just below
them. A black-haired woman stuck her head out of the window, intent on yelling something
in return, but when she caught sight of Jean through the cracks in her swinging shutter,
she gasped. This in turn drew the attention of the man clinging just beneath her;
a larger man even than Jean.
“What the hell is this shit?” he gasped. “What are
you
doing outside this window?”
“Amusing the gods, asshole.” Jean kicked down and tried to nudge the newcomer further
down the trellis, to no avail. “Kindly heave yourself down!”
“What are you doing outside this window, huh? You like to sneak a peek? You can sneak
a peek of my
fist
, cocksucker!”
Grunting with exertion, he began to climb back upward, grabbing at Jean’s legs. Jean
narrowly yanked himself out of the way, and the world reeled around him as he regained
his balance. Black wall, black sky, wet black cobblestones fifty feet below. That
was a bad fall, the kind that cracked men like eggs.
“All of you, get off my damned window
now
! Ferenz, for Morgante’s sake, leave them be and get
down
!” the woman hollered.
“Shit,” Locke muttered from a few feet above and to her left, his eloquence temporarily
cowed into submission. “Madam, you’re complicating our night, so before we come in
and complicate yours,
kindly
cork your bullshit bottle and close the gods-damned window!”
She looked up, aghast. “Two of you? All of you, get down, get down, get
down
!”
“Close your window, close your window, close your fucking
window
!”
“I’ll kill both you shitsuckers,” huffed Ferenz. “Drop you both off this fucking—”
There was a marrow-chillingly loud cracking noise, and the trellis shuddered beneath
the hands of the three men clinging to it.
“Ah,” said Locke. “Ah, that figures. Thanks ever so much, Ferenz.”
Then there was a torrent of polysyllabic blasphemy from four mouths; exactly who said
what would never be clearly recalled. Two careful men were apparently the trellis’
limit; under the weight of three careless flailers, it began to tear free of the stone
wall with a series of creaks and pops.
Ferenz surrendered to gravity and common sense and began sliding downward at prodigious
speed, burning his hands as he went, all but peeling the trellis off the wall above
him. It finally gave way when he was about twenty feet above the ground, flipping
over and dashing him down into the darkened alley, where he was promptly covered in
falling vines and wood. His descent had snapped off a section of trellis at least
thirty feet long, starting just beneath Jean’s dangling feet.
Wasting no time, Locke shimmied to his right and dropped down onto the window ledge,
shoving the screaming woman back with the tip of one
boot. Jean scrambled upward, for the shutter still blocked his direct access to the
window, and as the section of trellis under his hands began to pull out of the wall,
he gracelessly swung himself over the shutter and in through the window, taking Locke
with him.