Authors: Scott Lynch
“Hmmmph,” said Madam Durenna, stubbing out her cigar in the gold pot and rising to
her feet. She made a show of straightening her jacket—black brocaded velvet decorated
with platinum buttons and cloth-of-silver, worth a good fraction of everything she’d
bet that night. “Master Kosta, Master de Ferra … it appears we must admit to being
outmatched.”
“But certainly not outplayed,” said Locke, summoning up a snake-charming smile along
with the pulverized remnants of his wits. “You very nearly had us … um, sewn up.”
“And the whole world is wobbling around me,” said Jean, whose hands were as steady
as a jeweler’s, and had been throughout the entire game.
“Gentlemen, I have appreciated your stimulating company,” said Madam Durenna in a
tone of voice that indicated she hadn’t. “Another game later this week, perhaps? Surely
you must allow us a chance at revenge, for honor’s sake.”
“Nothing would please us more,” said Jean, to which Locke nodded enthusiastically,
making the contents of his skull ache. At that, Madam Durenna coldly held out her
hand and consented for the two of them to kiss the air above it. When they had done
so, as though making obeisance to a particularly irritable snake, four of Requin’s
attendants appeared to help move the snoring Madam Corvaleur somewhere more decorous.
“Gods, it must be tedious, watching us try to drink one another under the table night
after night,” said Jean. He flipped the dealer a five-solari chit; it was customary
to leave a small gratuity for the attendant.
“I don’t believe so, sir. How would you like your change?”
“What change?” Jean smiled. “Keep the whole thing.”
The attendant betrayed human emotions for the second time that night; relatively well-off
as he was, one little wooden chit was half his annual salary. He stifled a gasp when
Locke threw him another dozen.
“Fortune is a lady who likes to be passed around,” said Locke. “Buy a house, maybe.
I’m having a little trouble counting at the moment.”
“Sweet gods—
many
thanks, gentlemen!” The attendant took a quick glance around, and then spoke under
his breath. “Those two ladies don’t lose very often, you know. In fact, this is the
first time I can remember.”
“Victory has its price,” said Locke. “I suspect my head will be paying it when I wake
up tomorrow.”
Madam Corvaleur was hauled carefully down the stairs, with Madam
Durenna following to keep a close eye on the men carrying her card partner. The crowd
dispersed; those observers who remained at their tables called for attendants, food,
new decks of cards for games of their own.
Locke and Jean gathered their markers (fresh ones, sans slobber, were swiftly provided
by the attendants to replace Madam Corvaleur’s) in the customary velvet-lined wooden
boxes and made their way to the stairs.
“Congratulations, gentlemen,” said the attendant guarding the way up to the sixth
floor. The tinkle of glass on glass and the murmur of conversation could be heard
filtering down from above.
“Thank you,” said Locke. “I’m afraid that something in Madam Corvaleur gave way just
a hand or two before I might have done the same.”
He and Jean slowly made their way down the stairs that curved all the way around the
inside of the Sinspire’s exterior wall. They were dressed as men of credit and consequence
in the current height of Verrari summer fashion. Locke (whose hair had been alchemically
shifted to a sunny shade of blond) wore a caramel-brown coat with a cinched waist
and flaring knee-length tails; his huge triple-layered cuffs were paneled in orange
and black and decorated with gold buttons. He wore no waistcoat; just a sweat-soaked
tunic of the finest silk, under a loose black neck-cloth. Jean was dressed similarly,
though his coat was the grayish blue of a sea under clouds, and his belly was cinched
up with a wide black sash, the same color as the short, curly hairs of his beard.
Down past floors of notables they went … past queens of Verrari commerce with their
decorative young companions of both sexes on their arms like pets. Past men and women
with purchased Lashani titles, staring across cards and wine decanters at lesser dons
and doñas from Camorr; past Vadran shipmasters in tight black coats, with sea tans
like masks over their sharp, pale features. Locke recognized at least two members
of the Priori, the merchant council that theoretically ruled Tal Verrar. Deep pockets
seemed to be the primary qualification for membership.
Dice fell and glasses clinked; celebrants laughed and coughed and cursed and sighed.
Currents of smoke moved languidly in the warm air, carrying scents of perfume and
wine, sweat and roast meats, and here and there the resiny hint of alchemical drugs.
Locke had seen genuine palaces and mansions before; the Sinspire, opulent as it was,
was not so very much more handsome than the homes many of these people would be returning
to when they finally ran out of night to play in. The real magic of the Sinspire was
woven from its capricious exclusivity; deny something to enough people and sooner
or later it will grow a mystique as thick as fog.
Nearly hidden at the rear of the first floor was a heavy wooden booth manned by several
unusually large attendants. Luckily, there was no line. Locke set his box down on
the countertop beneath the booth’s only window, a bit too forcefully.
“All to my account.”
“My pleasure, Master Kosta,” said the chief attendant as he took the box. Leocanto
Kosta, merchant speculator of Talisham, was well known in this kingdom of wine fumes
and wagers. The attendant swiftly changed Locke’s pile of wooden chits into a few
marks on a ledger. In beating Durenna and Corvaleur, even minus his tip to the dealer,
Locke’s cut of the winnings came to nearly five hundred solari.
“I understand that congratulations are in order to the both of you, Master de Ferra,”
said the attendant as Locke stepped back to let Jean approach the counter with his
own box. Jerome de Ferra, also of Talisham, was Leocanto’s boon companion. They were
a pair of fictional peas in a pod.
Suddenly, Locke felt a hand fall onto his left shoulder. He turned warily and found
himself facing a woman with curly dark hair, richly dressed in the same colors as
the Sinspire attendants. One side of her face was sublimely beautiful—the other side
was a leathery brown half-mask, wrinkled, as though it had been badly burned. When
she smiled, the damaged side of her lips failed to move. It seemed to Locke as though
a living woman was somehow struggling to emerge from within a rough clay sculpture.
Selendri, Requin’s majordomo.
The hand that she had placed on his shoulder (her left, on the burned side) wasn’t
real. It was a solid brass simulacrum, and it gleamed dully in the lantern light as
she withdrew it.
“The house congratulates you,” she said in her eerie, lisping voice, “for good manners
as well as considerable fortitude, and wishes you and Master de Ferra to know that
you would both be welcome on the sixth floor, should you choose to exercise the privilege.”
Locke’s smile was quite genuine. “Many thanks, on behalf of myself and my partner,”
he said with tipsy glibness. “The kind regard of the house is, of course, extremely
flattering.”
She nodded noncommittally, then slipped away into the crowd as quickly as she’d come.
Eyebrows went up appreciatively here and there—few of Requin’s guests, to Locke’s
knowledge, were apprised of their increasing social status by Selendri herself.
“We’re a commodity in demand, my dear Jerome,” he said as they made their way through
the crowd toward the front doors.
“For the time being,” said Jean.
“Master de Ferra,” beamed the head doorman as they approached, “and Master Kosta.
May I call for a carriage?”
“No need, thanks,” said Locke. “I’ll fall over sideways if I don’t flush my head with
some night air. We’ll walk.”
“Very good then, sir.”
With military precision, four attendants held the doors open for Locke and Jean to
pass. The two thieves stepped carefully down a wide set of stone steps covered with
a red velvet carpet. That carpet was thrown out and replaced each night. As a result,
in Tal Verrar alone could one find armies of beggars routinely sleeping on piles of
red velvet scraps.
The view was breathtaking; to their right, the whole crescent sweep of the island
was visible beyond the silhouettes of other chance houses. There was relative darkness
in the north, in contrast to the auralike glow of the Golden Steps. Beyond the city—to
the south, west, and north—the Sea of Brass gleamed phosphorescent silver, lit by
three moons in a cloudless sky. Here and there the sails of distant ships reached
up from the quicksilver tableau, ghostly pale.
Locke could gaze downward to his left and see across the staggered rooftops of the
island’s five lower tiers, a vertigo-inducing view despite the solidity of the stones
beneath his feet. All around him was the murmur of human pleasure and the clatter
of horse-drawn carriages on cobbles; there were at least a dozen moving or waiting
along the straight avenue atop the sixth tier. Above, the Sinspire reared up into
the opalescent darkness with its alchemical lanterns bright, like a candle meant to
draw the attentions of the gods.
“And now, my dear professional pessimist,” said Locke as they stepped away from the
Sinspire and acquired relative privacy, “my worry-merchant, my tireless font of doubt
and derision … what do you have to say to
that
?”
“Oh, very little, to be sure, Master Kosta. It’s so hard to think, overawed as I am
with the sublime genius of your plan.”
“That bears some vague resemblance to sarcasm.”
“Gods forfend,” said Jean. “You wound me! Your inexpressible criminal virtues have
triumphed again, as inevitably as the tides come and go. I cast myself at your feet
and beg for absolution. Yours is the genius that nourishes the heart of the world.”
“And now you’re—”
“If only there was a leper handy,” interrupted Jean, “so you could lay your hands
on and magically heal him.”
“Oh, you’re just farting out your mouth because you’re jealous.”
“It’s possible,” said Jean. “Actually, we are substantially enriched, not caught,
not dead, more famous, and welcome on the next floor up. I must admit that I was wrong
to call it a silly scheme.”
“Really? Huh.” Locke reached under his coat lapels as he spoke. “Because I have to
admit, it
was
a silly scheme. Damned irresponsible. One drink more and I would have been finished.
I’m actually pretty bloody surprised we pulled it off.”
He fumbled beneath his coat for a second or two, then pulled out a little pad of wool
about as wide and long as his thumb. A puff of dust was shaken from the wool when
Locke slipped it into one of his outer pockets, and he wiped his hands vigorously
on his sleeves as they walked along.
“Nearly lost is just another way to say finally won,” said Jean.
“Nonetheless, the liquor almost did me in. Next time I’m that optimistic about my
own capacity, correct me with a hatchet to the skull.”
“I’ll be glad to correct you with
two
.”
It was Madam Izmila Corvaleur who’d made the scheme possible. Madam Corvaleur, who’d
first crossed paths with “Leocanto Kosta” at a gaming table a few weeks earlier, who
had the reliable habit of eating with her fingers to annoy her opponents while she
played cards.
Carousel Hazard really
couldn’t
be cheated by any traditional means. None of Requin’s attendants would stack a deck,
not once in a hundred years, not even in exchange for a dukedom. Nor could any player
alter the carousel, select one vial in favor of another, or serve a vial to anyone
else. With all the usual means of introducing a foreign substance to another player
guarded against, the only remaining possibility was for a player to do herself in
by slowly, willingly taking in something subtle and unorthodox. Something delivered
by a means beyond the ken of even a healthy paranoia.
Like a narcotic powder, dusted on the playing cards in minute quantities by Locke
and Jean, then gradually passed around the table to a woman continually licking her
fingers as she played.
Bela paranella
was a colorless, tasteless alchemical powder also known as “the night friend.” It
was popular with rich people of a nervous disposition, who took it to ease themselves
into deep, restful slumber. When mixed with alcohol,
bela paranella
was rapidly effective in tiny quantities; the two substances were as complementary
as fire and dry parchment. It would have been widely used for criminal purposes, if
not for the fact that it sold for twenty times its own weight in white iron.
“Gods, that woman had the constitution of a war galley,” said Locke. “She must have
started getting some of the powder by the third or fourth hand … probably could’ve
killed a pair of wild boars in heat with less.”
“At least we got what we wanted,” said Jean, removing his own powder reservoir from
his coat. He considered it for a moment, shrugged, and slipped it in a pocket.
“We did indeed … and I saw him!” said Locke. “Requin. He was on the stairs, watching
us for most of the hands in the middle game. We
must
have excited a personal interest.” The exciting ramifications of this helped clear
some of the haze from Locke’s thoughts. “Why else send Selendri herself to pat our
backs?”
“Well, assume you’re correct. So what now? Do you want to push on with it, like you
mentioned, or do you want to take it slow? Maybe gamble around on the fifth and sixth
floors for a few more weeks?”
“A few more weeks? To hell with that. We’ve been kicking around this gods-damned city
for two years now; if we’ve finally cracked Requin’s shell, I say we bloody well go
for it.”
“You’re going to suggest tomorrow night, aren’t you?”
“His curiosity’s piqued. Let’s strike while the blade is fresh from the forge.”