Authors: Scott Lynch
“She’s casting, sir. She’s going to make for sea—where’d all those people come from?”
said the younger watchman.
“I don’t know,” said the sergeant, “but the signal’s just gone up. Merciful gods,
they’re going to sink that yellow-lit bitch.”
Pinpoints of bright orange light began to erupt around the periphery of the Dregs;
each little engine-tower had emergency oil lamps that served to signal when they were
both manned and ready for action. Drums beat within the Arsenal, and whistles sounded
from across the city, above the low echoing murmur of the Day of Changes crowds.
One of the engines on the Dregs’ shore loosed with an echoing crash. The stone was
a blurred shadow in the air; it missed by yards and raised a white fountain on the
frigate’s starboard side.
The next engine to let fly hurled an arc of orange-white fire that seemed to hang
in the sky, a hypnotic banner of burning light. The South Needle watchmen stared in
awe as it crashed down onto the
Satisfaction
‘s deck, spraying hot tendrils in every direction. Men ran frantically about on the
deck, some of them obviously on fire. One leapt from the vessel’s side, plunging into
the water like a burning cinder thrown into a puddle.
“Gods, that’s fire-oil,” said the younger watchman. “It won’t stop burning even down
there.”
“Well, even sharks like cooked meat,” said the sergeant with a chuckle. “Poor bastards.”
A stone crashed against the side of the frigate, shattering wooden rails and sending
splinters flying. Men whirled and screamed and fell to the deck; the fire was rising
into the sails and rigging, despite the frantic efforts of the
Satisfaction’
s crew to control it with sand. Another fire-barrel exploded against the quarterdeck;
the men and women at the wheel were engulfed in a roaring nimbus of white flame. They
didn’t even have time to scream.
Stones battered the ship and tore through her few fluttering sails; fires burned out
of control at her bow, her stern, and amidships. Fingers of orange and red and white
capered about the decks and rose into the sky, along with smoke in several colors.
Under the arc of a dozen throwing-engines, the unarmed and nearly motionless frigate
never had a chance. Five minutes after the signal had flashed forth from Raven’s Reach,
the
Satisfaction
was a pyre—a mountain of red-and-white flame reaching up from the water that rippled
like a red mirror beneath the dying ship’s hull.
Archers took up position on the shore, ready to shoot down any survivors who tried
to swim for it, but there were none. Between the fire and the water and the things
that lurked in the harbor’s depths, arrows were unnecessary.
LUCIANO ANATOLIUS, the Gray King, the Capa of Camorr, the last living member of his
family line, stood alone on the upper deck of the Floating Grave, beneath the silk
awnings that fluttered in the Hangman’s Wind, beneath the dark sky that reflected
the eerie waver of Falselight, and watched his ship burn.
He stared into the west with the red fire rippling in his eyes, and he did not blink;
he stared north, to the glowing tower of Raven’s Reach, where flashing blue and red
lights could be seen, where no cloud of pale white smoke was rising against the sky.
He stood alone on the deck of the Floating Grave, and he did not cry, though in his
heart he desired nothing more at that moment.
Cheryn and Raiza would not have cried. Mother and Father would not have cried. They
had
not cried, when Barsavi’s men had kicked in their door in the middle of the night,
when his father had died trying to defend
them all long enough for Gisella to bundle him and the little twins out the back door.
The
Satisfaction
burned before his eyes, but in his mind he was running through the darkness of the
gardens once again, thirteen years old, stumbling over familiar paths with branches
lashing his face and hot tears streaming down his cheeks. In the villa behind them,
knives were rising and falling; a small child was crying for her mother—and then that
crying suddenly stopped.
“We’ll never forget,” Raiza had said, in the dark hold of the ship that had carried
them to Talisham. “We’ll never forget, will we, Luciano?”
Her little hand had curled tight inside his; Cheryn slept uneasily against his other
side, murmuring and crying out in her sleep.
“We’ll never forget,” he’d replied. “And we’ll go back. I promise you, someday we’ll
go back.”
He stood on the deck of Barsavi’s fortress, in Camorr, and he had the power to do
exactly nothing as his ship turned the waters of Old Harbor bloodred with its death.
“Capa Raza?”
There was a hesitant voice behind him; a man came up through the passage from the
galleries below. One of the Rum Hounds, from the extravagant gambling circle that
had grown in his throne room. He turned slowly.
“Capa Raza, this just got brought in … one of the Falselight Cutters, Your Honor.
Says a man in Ashfall gave him a tyrin and told him to get this to you right away.”
The man held out a burlap sack;
RAZA
was scrawled on it in rough black letters—the ink still seemed to be wet.
Luciano took the bag and waved the man away; the Rum Hound ran for the passage and
vanished down it, not at all pleased with what he’d seen in his master’s eyes.
The Capa of Camorr opened the bag and found himself staring down at the body of a
scorpion hawk—a headless scorpion hawk. He turned the bag upside down and let the
contents fall to the deck; the head and the body of Vestris bounced against the wooden
planks. A folded, bloodstained piece of parchment fluttered down after them. He grabbed
at it and opened it:
WE’RE COMING.
Luciano stared down at the note for an unknown interval of time. It might have been
five seconds; it might have been five minutes. Then he crumpled it in his hands and
let it fall. It hit the deck and rolled to a rest beside Vestris’ glassy, staring
eyes.
If they were coming, they were coming. There would be time enough for escape when
this last personal debt was discharged.
He went down the passage to the gallery below, into the light and the noise of the
ongoing party. The smell of smoke and liquor hung in the air; his booted feet made
the boards creak as he hurried down the stairs.
Men and women looked up from their cards and dice as he stalked past. Some waved and
shouted greetings or honorifics; none of them received any response. Capa Raza threw
open the door to his private suite of apartments (formerly Barsavi’s) and vanished
inside for several minutes.
When he emerged, he was dressed as the Gray King, in his old fog-gray leather vest
and breeches, in his gray sharkskin boots with the tarnished silver buckles, in his
gray swordsman’s gloves creased at the knuckles from use, in his gray cloak and mantle
with the hood raised. His cloak fluttered behind him as he moved forward; the lights
of the Floating Grave gleamed on the naked steel of his drawn rapier.
The party died in an instant.
“Get out,” he said. “Get out and stay away. Leave the doors open. No guards. Get out
while I’ll still give you the chance.”
Cards spiraled down to the deck; dice rattled across the wood. Men and women jumped
to their feet, dragging drunk comrades with them. Bottles rolled and wine pooled as
the general retreat progressed. In less than a minute, the Gray King stood alone at
the heart of the Floating Grave.
He strolled slowly over to a bank of silver cords that hung down from the ceiling
on the starboard side of the old galleon. He pulled on one and the white lights of
the chandeliers died; he pulled another and the curtains over the room’s tall windows
were pulled back, opening the throne room to the night. A tug on a third cord, and
red alchemical globes came to life in dark niches on the walls; the heart of the wooden
fortress became a cave of carmine light.
He sat upon his throne with the rapier balanced across his legs, and the red light
made fires of his eyes within the shadowed hood.
He sat upon his throne and waited for the last two Gentlemen Bastards to find him.
AT HALF past the tenth hour of the evening, Locke Lamora entered that throne room
and stood with one hand on his rapier, staring at the Gray King, seated thirty yards
away in his silent audience chamber. Locke was breathing hard, and not merely from
his journey south; he’d covered most of the distance on a stolen horse.
The feel of the hilt of Reynart’s blade beneath his hand was at once exhilarating
and terrifying. He knew he was probably at a disadvantage in a straightforward fight,
but his blood was up. He dared to imagine that anger and speed and hope could sustain
him for what was coming. He cleared his throat.
“Gray King,” he said.
“Thorn of Camorr.”
“I’m pleased,” said Locke. “I thought you might have left already. But I’m sorry … you
needed that frigate, didn’t you? I had my good friend, the Countess Amberglass, send
it to the bottom of the fucking bay.”
“That deed,” said the Gray King in a weary voice, “will lose its savor in a few minutes,
I assure you. Where’s Jean Tannen?”
“On his way,” said Locke. “On his way.”
Locke walked forward slowly, cutting the distance between them in half.
“I warned the Falconer not to toy with Tannen,” said the Gray King. “Apparently, my
warning wasn’t heeded. I congratulate you both for your improbable resilience, but
now I fear I’ll be doing you a favor by killing you before the Bondsmagi can take
their revenge.”
“You’re assuming the Falconer is dead,” said Locke. “He’s still breathing, but he’ll,
ah, never play any musical instruments again.”
“Interesting. How have you done all this, I wonder? Why does the Death Goddess scorn
to snuff you like a candle? I wish I knew.”
“Fuck your wishes. Why did you do it the way you did, Luciano? Why didn’t you try
for an honest accommodation with us? One might have been reached.”
“Might,” said the Gray King. “There was no room for ‘might,’ Lamora. There were only
my needs. You had what I needed, and you were too dangerous to let live once I had
it. You’ve made that only too clear.”
“But you could have settled for simple theft,” said Locke. “I would have given it
all to keep Calo and Galdo and Bug alive. I would have given it
all
, had you put it to me like that!”
“What thief does not fight to hold what he has?”
“One that has something better,” said Locke. “The stealing was more the point for
us than the keeping; if the keeping had been so fine, we would have found something
to fucking do with it all.”
“Easy to say, in hindsight.” The Gray King sighed. “You would have said something
different, when they were still alive.”
“We stole from the
peers
, you asshole. We stole from them
exclusively
. Of all the people to double-cross … You aided the nobility when you tried to wipe
us out. You gave the people you hate a gods-damned gift.”
“So you relieved them of their
money
, Master Lamora, scrupulously refraining from taking lives in the process.… Should
I applaud? Name you a brother-in-arms? There’s always more
money
, Lamora. Theft alone would not teach them the lesson they had coming.”
“How could you do it, Luciano? How could a man who lost what you lost, who felt what
you felt for Barsavi do the same to
me
?”
“The same?” The Gray King leapt up; the rapier was in his hand. “The
same
? Were your parents murdered in their beds to protect a lie, Master Lamora? Were your
infant siblings put to the knife so they could never grow old enough to revenge? Thief!
You don’t know what crime truly is.”
“I lost three brothers at your hands,” said Locke. “I almost lost four. You didn’t
need to do it. When you thought you were finished with me, you tried to kill
hundreds
. Children, Luciano,
children
—born years after Barsavi murdered your parents. It must be nice to be righteous;
from where I’m standing it looks like fucking lunacy.”
“They were sheltered by the Secret Peace,” said the Gray King. “They were parasites,
guilty by birth. Save your arguments, Priest. Don’t you think I’ve had them with myself
on too many nights to count over the past twenty-two fucking
years
?”
The Gray King took a step forward, the tip of his blade rising in Locke’s direction.
“If it were in my power,” he said, “I would knock this city to the ground and write
the names of my family in its ashes.”
“
Ila justicca vei cala
,” Locke whispered. He stepped forward once again, until they were separated by barely
two yards. He slid Reynart’s rapier out of its scabbard and stood at guard.
“Justice is red.” The Gray King faced Locke with his knees bent, the true edge of
his rapier facing the ground, in the position Camorri fencers called the
waiting wolf
. “It is indeed.”
Locke struck out before the Gray King had finished speaking; for an
eyeblink darting steel cut an afterimage in the air between the two men. The Gray
King parried Locke’s thrust, forte to foible, and riposted with speed more than equal
to Locke’s own. Lamora avoided a skewering only by an undignified backward lunge;
he landed in a crouch with his left hand splayed out to keep himself from going ass-over-elbows
on the hard wood of the deck.
Warily, Locke circled in the direction the lunge had knocked him, barely rising from
his crouch. A dagger appeared in his left hand as though by legerdemain; this he twirled
several times.
“Hmm,” said the Gray King. “Tell me you don’t mean to fight Verrari-style. I find
the school insipid.”
“Please yourself.” Locke wiggled his dagger suggestively. “I’ll try not to get too
much blood on your cloak.”
Sighing theatrically, the Gray King plucked one of two narrow-hilted daggers from
his own belt, and held it out so that his blades opened in the air before him like
jaws. He then took two exaggerated hops forward.