Authors: Scott Lynch
I’m sorry, Jean, I really am. Vel Virazzo was a bad time. I miss Calo, Galdo, and
Bug.”
“As do I, but …”
“I know. I let my sorrow get the best of me. It was damned selfish, and I
know
you must ache like I do. I said some stupid things. But I thought I’d been forgiven.… Did
I misunderstand?” Locke’s voice hardened. “Shall I now understand that forgiveness
is something prone to going in and out like the tide?”
“Now that’s hardly fair. Just—”
“Just what? Am I special, Jean? Am I our only liability? When have I ever doubted
your skills? When have I ever treated you like a child? You’re not my fucking mother,
and you’re certainly not Chains. We can’t work as partners if you’re going to sit
in judgment of me like this.”
The two of them stared at each other, each trying to muster an attitude of cold indignation,
and each failing. The mood within the little cabin turned morose, and Jean turned
to stare sullenly out the window for a few moments while Locke dejectedly shuffled
his cards. He attempted another one-handed cut, and neither he nor Jean seemed surprised
when a little blizzard of paper chits settled into the seat beside Jean.
“I’m sorry,” Locke said as his cards fluttered down. “That was another shitty thing
to say. Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?”
“You’re right,” Jean said softly. “I’m not Chains and I’m certainly not your mother.
I shouldn’t push you.”
“No, you should. You pushed me off that galleon and you pushed me out of Vel Virazzo.
You
were right. I behaved terribly, and I can understand if you’re still … nervous about
me. I was so wrapped up in what I’d lost, I forgot what I still had. I’m glad you
still worry enough about me to kick my ass when I need it.”
“I, ah, look—I apologize as well. I just—”
“Damn it, don’t interrupt me when I’m feeling virtuously self-critical. I’m ashamed
of how I behaved in Vel Virazzo. It was a slight to everything we’ve been through
together. I promise to do better. Does that put you at ease?”
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Jean began to pick up the scattered cards, and the ghost of a
smile reappeared on his face. Locke settled back in his seat and rubbed his eyes.
“Gods. We need a target, Jean. We need a
game
. We need someone to go to work on, as a team. Don’t you see? It’s not just about
what we can charm
out of Requin. I want it to be us against the world, lively and dangerous, just like
it used to be. Where there’s no room for this sort of second-guessing, you know?”
“Because we’re constantly inches from a horrible bloody death, you mean.”
“Right. The good times.”
“This plan might take a year,” said Jean, slowly. “Maybe two.”
“For a game this interesting, I’m
willing
to spend a year or two. You have any other pressing engagements?”
Jean shook his head, passed the collected cards back to Locke, and went back to his
sheaf of notes, a deeply thoughtful expression on his face. Locke slowly traced the
outline of the deck of cards with the fingers of his left hand, which felt slightly
less useful than a crab claw. He could feel the still-fresh scars itching beneath
his cotton tunic—scars so extensive it looked as though most of his left side had
been sewn together from rag parts. Gods
damn
it, he was ready to be healed
now
. He was ready to have his old careless agility back. He imagined that he felt like
a man of twice his years.
He tried another one-handed shuffle, and the deck fell apart in his hands. At least
it hadn’t shot apart in all directions. Was that improvement?
He and Jean were silent for several minutes.
Eventually, the carriage rattled around a final small hill and suddenly Locke was
looking across a green checkerboard land, sloping downward to sea-cliffs perhaps five
or six miles distant. Specks of gray and white and black dotted the landscape, thickening
toward the horizon, where the landside of Tal Verrar crowded against the cliff edges.
The coastal section of the city seemed pressed down beneath the rain; great silvery
curtains were sweeping past behind it, blotting out the islands of Tal Verrar proper.
Lightning crackled blue and white in the distance, and soft peals of thunder rolled
toward them across the fields.
“We’re here,” said Locke.
“Landside,” said Jean without looking up. “Might as well find an inn when we get there;
we’ll be hard pressed to find a boat to the islands in weather like this.”
“Who shall we be, when we get there?”
Jean looked up and chewed his lip before taking the bait of their old game. “Let’s
be something other than Camorri for a while. Camorr’s brought us nothing good of late.”
“Talishani?”
“Seems good to me.” Jean adjusted his voice slightly, adopting the faint
but characteristic accent of the city of Talisham. “Anonymous Unknown of Talisham,
and his associate Unknown Anonymous, also of Talisham.”
“What names did we leave on the books at Meraggio’s?”
“Well, Lukas Fehrwight and Evante Eccari are right out. Even if those accounts haven’t
been confiscated by the state, they’ll be watched. You trust the Spider not to get
a burr up her ass if she finds out we’re active in Tal Verrar?”
“No,” said Locke. “I seem to recall … Jerome de Ferra, Leocanto Kosta, and Milo Voralin.”
“I opened the Milo Voralin account myself. He’s supposed to be Vadran. I think we
might leave him in reserve.”
“And that’s what we have left? Three useful accounts?”
“Sadly, yes. But it’s more than most thieves get. I’ll be Jerome.”
“I suppose I’ll be Leocanto, then. What are we doing in Tal Verrar, Jerome?”
“We’re … hired men for a Lashani countess. She’s thinking of buying a summer home
in Tal Verrar and we’re there to hunt one down for her.”
“Hmmm. That might be good for a few months, but after we’ve looked at all the available
properties, then what? And there’s lots of actual work involved, if we don’t want
everyone to know right away that we’re lying through our teeth. What if we call ourselves … merchant
speculators?”
“Merchant speculators. That’s good. It doesn’t have to mean a damn thing.”
“Exactly. If we spend all our time lounging around the chance houses cutting cards,
well, we’re just passing time waiting for market conditions to ripen.”
“Or we’re so good at our jobs we hardly need to work at all.”
“Our lines write themselves. How did we meet, and how long have we been together?”
“We met five years ago.” Jean scratched his beard. “On a sea voyage. We became business
partners out of sheer boredom. Since then we’ve been inseparable.”
“Except that my plan calls for me to be plotting your death.”
“Yes, but I don’t know that, do I? Boon companion! I suspect nothing.”
“Chump! I can hardly wait to see you get yours.”
“And the loot? Assuming we do manage to work our way into Requin’s confidence, and
we do manage to call the dance properly, and we do manage to get out of his city with
everything intact … we haven’t really talked about what comes after that.”
“We’ll be old thieves, Jean.” Locke squinted and tried to pick out details of the
rain-swept landscape as the carriage made its final turn down the long, straight road
into Tal Verrar. “Old thieves of seven-and-twenty, or perhaps eight-and-twenty, when
we finish this. I don’t know. How would you feel about becoming a viscount?”
“Lashain,” Jean mused. “Buy a pair of titles, you mean? Settle there for good?”
“Not sure if I’d go that far. But last I heard, poor titles were running about ten
thousand solari, and better ones fifteen to twenty. It’d give us a home and some clout.
We could do whatever we wanted from there. Plot more games. Grow old in comfort.”
“Retirement?”
“We can’t run around false-facing forever, Jean. I think we both realize that. Sooner
or later we’ll need to favor another style of crime. Let’s tease a nice big score
out of this place and then sink it into something
useful
. Build something again. Whatever comes after … well, we can charm that lock when
we come to it.”
“Viscount Anonymous Unknown of Lashain—and his neighbor, Viscount Unknown Anonymous.
There are worse fates, I suppose.”
“There certainly are—Jerome. So are you with me?”
“Of course, Leocanto. You know that. Maybe another two years of honest thieving will
leave me
ready
to retire. I could get back into silks and shipping, like mother and father—perhaps
look up some of their old contacts, if I can remember them right.”
“I think Tal Verrar will be good for us,” said Locke. “It’s a pristine city. We’ve
never worked out of it and it’s never seen our like. Nobody knows us; nobody expects
us. We’ll have total freedom of movement.”
The carriage clattered along under the rain, jostling against patches where the weathered
stones of the Therin Throne road had been washed clean of their protective layers
of dirt. Lightning lit the sky in the distance, but the gray veil swirled thick between
land and sea, and the great mass of Tal Verrar was hidden from their eyes as they
rode down into it for the first time.
“You’re almost certainly right, Locke. I think we
do
need a game.” Jean set his notes on his lap and cracked his knuckles. “Gods, but
it’ll be good to be out and around. It’ll be good to be the predators again.”
THE CHAMBER WAS a rough brick cube about eight feet on a side. It was completely dark,
and an arid sauna heat was radiating from the walls, which were too hot to touch for
more than a few seconds. Locke and Jean had been sweltering inside it for only the
gods knew how long—probably hours.
“Agh.” Locke’s voice was cracked. He and Jean were seated back to back in the blackness,
leaning against each other for support, with their folded coats beneath them. Locke
beat his heels against the stones of the floor, not for the first time.
“Gods damn it!” Locke yelled. “Let us out. You’ve made your point!”
“What point,” rasped Jean, “could that possibly be?”
“I don’t know.” Locke coughed. “I don’t care. Whatever it is, they’ve damn well made
it, don’t you think?”
THE REMOVAL of their hoods had been a relief, for about two heartbeats.
First had come an interminable interval spent stumbling around in stifling darkness,
pulled and prodded along by captors who seemed to be in some haste. Next, there was
indeed a boat ride; Locke could smell the warm salt mists rising off the city’s harbor,
while the deck swayed gently beneath him and oars creaked rhythmically in their locks.
Eventually, that too came to an end; the boat rocked as someone rose and moved about.
The oars were drawn in and an unfamiliar voice called for poles. A few moments later,
the boat bumped against something, and strong hands again hoisted Locke to his feet.
When he’d been helped from the boat to a firm stone surface, the hood was suddenly
whisked off his head. He looked around, blinked at the sudden light, and said, “Oh,
shit.”
At the heart of Tal Verrar, between the three crescent islands of the Great Guilds,
lay the Castellana, fortified estate of the dukes of Tal Verrar centuries earlier.
Now that the city had dispensed with titled nobility, the mansion-covered Castellana
was home to a new breed of well-heeled gentry—the Priori councilors, the independently
rich, and those guild-masters whose social positions required the most ostentatious
displays of spending power.
At the very heart of the Castellana, guarded by a moat of empty air like a circular
Elderglass canyon, was the Mon Magisteria, the palace of the archon—a towering human
achievement springing upward from alien grandeur. An elegant stone weed growing in
a glass garden.
Locke and Jean had been brought to a point directly beneath it. Locke guessed that
they stood within the hollow space that separated the Mon Magisteria from the surrounding
island; a million-faceted cavern of darkened Elderglass soared upward around them,
and the open air of the upper island lay fifty or sixty feet above their heads. The
channel that the boat had traveled through wound away to his left, and the sound of
the lapping water was drowned out by a distant rumbling noise with no visible cause.
There was a wide stone landing at the base of the Mon Magisteria’s private island,
with several boats tied up alongside it, including an enclosed ceremonial barge with
silk awnings and gilded woodwork. Soft blue alchemical lamps in iron posts filled
the space with light, and behind those posts a dozen soldiers stood at attention.
Even if a quick glance upward hadn’t told Locke the identity of their captor, those
soldiers would have revealed everything.
They wore dark blue doublets and breeches, with black leather bracers, vests, and
boots all chased with raised designs in gleaming brass. Blue hoods were drawn up around
the backs of their heads, and their faces were covered with featureless oval masks
of polished bronze. Grids of tiny pinholes permitted them to see and breathe, but
from a distance every impression of humanity was erased—the soldiers were faceless
sculptures brought to life.
The Eyes of the Archon.
“Here you are then, Master Kosta, Master de Ferra.” The woman who’d
waylaid Locke and Jean stepped up onto the landing between them and took them by the
elbows, smiling as though they were out for a night on the town. “Is this not a more
private place for a conversation?”
“What,” said Jean, “have we done to warrant our transport here?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask,” said the woman as she pushed them gently forward. “My
job is to retrieve, and deliver.”
She released Locke and Jean just before the front rank of the archon’s soldiers. Their
own disquieted expressions were reflected back at them in a dozen gleaming bronze
masks.