Authors: Scott Lynch
“And sometimes,” said the woman as she returned to the boat, “when guests don’t come
back out again, my job is to forget that I ever saw them at all.”
The Eyes of the Archon moved without apparent signal; Locke and Jean were enveloped
and secured by several soldiers apiece. One of them spoke—another woman, her voice
echoing ominously. “We will go up. You must not struggle and you must not speak.”
“Or what?” said Locke.
The Eye who’d spoken stepped over to Jean without hesitation and punched him in the
stomach. The big man exhaled in surprise and grimaced while the female Eye turned
back to Locke. “If either of you causes any trouble, I’m instructed to punish the
other
one. Do I make myself clear?”
Locke ground his teeth together and nodded.
A wide set of switchback stairs led upward from the landing; the glass underfoot was
rough as brick. Flight by flight the archon’s soldiers led Locke and Jean up past
gleaming walls, until the moist night breeze of the city was on their faces once again.
They emerged within the perimeter defined by the glass chasm. A guardhouse stood just
this side of the thirty-foot gap, beside a drawbridge currently hauled straight up
into the air and set inside a heavy wood frame. Locke presumed that was the usual
means of entrance to the archon’s domain.
The Mon Magisteria was a ducal fortress in the true Therin Throne style, easily fifteen
stories high at its peak and three or four times as wide. Layer after layer of crenellated
battlements rose up, formed from flat black stones that seemed to absorb the fountains
of light thrown up by dozens of lanterns burning on the castle’s grounds. Columned
aqueducts circled the walls and towers at every level, and decorative streams of water
cascaded down from sculptures of dragons and sea monsters set at the fortress’ corners.
The Eyes of the Archon led Locke and Jean toward the front of the palace, down a wide
path dusted with white gravel. There were lush green lawns on either side of the path,
set behind decorative stone borders that made the lawns seem like islands. More blue-robed
and black-armored guards in bronze masks stood unmoving along the path, holding up
blackened-steel halberds with alchemical lights built into their wooden shafts.
Where most castles would have a front gate the Mon Magisteria had a rushing waterfall
wider than the path on which they stood; this was the source of the noise Locke had
heard echoing at the boat landing below. Multiple torrents of water crashed out of
huge, dark apertures set in a line running straight up the castle wall. These joined
and fell into a churning moat at the very base of the structure, a moat even wider
than the glass-sided canyon that cut the castle grounds off from the rest of the Castellana.
A bridge, slightly arched, vanished into the pounding white waterfall about halfway
over the moat. Warm mist wafted up around them as their party approached the edge
of this bridge, which Locke could now see had some sort of niche cut into it, running
right down its center for its full visible length. Beside the bridge was an iron pull-chain
hanging from the top of a narrow stone pillar. The Eye officer reached up for this
and gave it three swift tugs.
A moment later there came a metallic rattling noise from the direction of the bridge.
A dark shape loomed within the waterfall, grew, and then burst out toward them with
mist and water exploding off its roof. It was a giant box of iron-ribbed wood, fifteen
feet high and as wide as the bridge. Rumbling, it slid along the track carved into
the bridge until it halted with a squeal of metal on metal just before them. Doors
popped open toward them, pushed from the inside by two attendants in dark blue coats
with silver-braid trim.
Locke and Jean were ushered into the roomy conveyance, which had windows set into
the end facing the castle. Through them, Locke could see nothing but rushing water.
The waterfall pounded off the roof; the noise was like being in a carriage during
a heavy storm.
When Locke and Jean and all the Eyes had stepped into the box, the attendants drew
the doors closed. One of them pulled a chain set into the right-hand wall, and with
a lurching rumble the box was drawn back to where it had come from. As they passed
through it, Locke guessed that the waterfall was fifteen to twenty feet long. An unprotected
man would never be able to pass it without being knocked into the moat, which he supposed
was precisely the point.
That, and it was a hell of a way to show off.
They soon pushed through the other side of the falls. Locke could see that they were
being drawn into a huge hemispherical hall, with a curved far wall and a ceiling about
thirty feet high. Alchemical chandeliers shed light on the hall, silver and white
and gold, so that the place gleamed like a treasure vault through the distortion of
the water-covered windows. When the conveyor box ground to a halt, the attendants
manipulated unseen latches to crack open the forward windows like a pair of giant
doors.
Locke and Jean were prodded out of the box, but more gently than before. The stones
at their feet were slick with water, and they followed the example of the guards in
treading carefully. The waterfall roared at their back for a moment longer, and then
two huge doors slammed together behind the conveyor box, and the deafening noise became
a dull echo.
Some sort of water engine could be seen in a wall niche to Locke’s left. Several men
and women stood before gleaming cylinders of brass, working levers attached to mechanical
contrivances whose functions were well beyond Locke’s capability to guess. Heavy iron
chains disappeared into dark holes in the floor, just beside the track the huge wooden
box rode in. Jean, too, cocked his head for a closer look at this curiosity, but once
past the danger of the slick stones, the soldiers’ brief spate of tolerance passed
and they shoved the two thieves along at a good clip once again.
Through the entrance hall, wide and grand enough to host several balls at once, they
passed at speed. The hall had no windows open to the outside, but rather, artificial
panoramas of stained glass, lit from behind. Each window seemed to be a stylized view
of what
would
be seen through a real hole cut in the stone—white buildings and mansions, dark skies,
the tiers of islands across the harbor, dozens of sails in the main anchorage.
Locke and Jean were escorted down a side hall, up a flight of steps, and down another
hall, past blue-coated guards standing stiffly at attention. Was it Locke’s imagination,
or did something more than ordinary respect creep into their faces when the bronze
masks of the Eyes swept past them? There was no more time to ponder, for they were
suddenly halted before their evident destination. In a corridor full of wooden doorways,
they stood before one made of metal.
An Eye stepped forward, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. The room beyond was
small and dark. Soldiers rapidly undid the bonds on Locke and Jean’s hands, and then
the two of them were shoved forward into the little room.
“Hey, wait just a damn—,” said Locke, but the door slammed shut behind them and the
sudden blackness was absolute.
“Perelandro,” said Jean. He and Locke spent a few seconds stumbling
into each other before they managed to regain some balance and dignity. “How on earth
did we attract the attention of
these
bloody assholes?”
“I don’t know, Jerome.” Locke emphasized the pseudonym very slightly. “But maybe the
walls have ears. Hey! Bloody assholes! No need to be coy! We’re perfectly well behaved
when civilly incarcerated.”
Locke stumbled toward the remembered location of the nearest wall to pound his fists
against it. He discovered for the first time that it was rough brick. “Damnation,”
he muttered, and sucked at a scraped knuckle.
“Odd,” said Jean.
“What?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“What?”
“Is it just me, or does it seem to be getting warmer in here?”
TIME WENT by with all the speed of a sleepless night.
Locke was seeing colors flashing and wobbling in the darkness, and while part of him
knew they weren’t real, that part of him was getting less and less assertive with
every passing minute. The heat was like a weight pressing in on every inch of his
skin. His tunic was wide open, and he’d slipped his neck-cloths off so he could wrap
them around his hands to steady himself as he leaned back against Jean.
When the door clicked open, it took him a few seconds to realize that he wasn’t imagining
things. The crack of white light grew into a square, and he flinched back with his
hands over his eyes. The air from the corridor fell across him like a cool autumn
breeze.
“Gentlemen,” said a voice from beyond the square of light, “there has been a terrible
misunderstanding.”
“Ungh gah ah,” was all the response Locke could muster as he tried to remember just
how his knees worked. His mouth felt dryer than if it had been packed with cornmeal.
Strong, cool hands reached out to help him to his feet; the room swam around him as
he and Jean were helped back out into the bliss of the corridor. They were surrounded
once again by blue doublets and bronze masks, but Locke squinted against the light
and felt more ashamed than afraid. He
knew
he was confused, almost as though he were drunk, and he was powerless to do anything
more than grasp at the vague realization. He was carried along corridors and up stairs
(Stairs! Gods! How many sets could there be in one bloody palace?), with his legs
only sometimes bearing their fair
share of his weight. He felt like a puppet in a cruel comedy with an unusually large
stage set.
“Water,” he managed to gasp out.
“Soon,” said one of the soldiers carrying him. “Very soon.”
At last he and Jean were ushered through tall black doors into a softly lit office
that seemed to have walls made up of thousands upon thousands of tiny glass cells
filled with little flickering shadows. Locke blinked and cursed his condition; he’d
heard sailors talk of “dry drunk”—the stupidity, weakness, and irritability that seized
a man in great want of water—but he’d never imagined he’d experience it firsthand.
It was making everything very strange indeed; no doubt it was embellishing the details
of a perfectly ordinary room.
The office held a small table and three plain wooden chairs. Locke steered himself
toward one of them gratefully, but was firmly restrained and held upright by the soldiers
at his arms.
“You must wait,” said one of them.
Though not for long; a scant few heartbeats later, another door opened into the office.
A man in long fur-trimmed robes of deepwater blue strode in, clearly agitated.
“Gods defend the archon of Tal Verrar,” said the four soldiers in unison.
Maxilan Stragos, came Locke’s dazed realization, the gods-damned supreme warlord of
Tal Verrar.
“For pity’s sake, let these men have their chairs,” said the archon. “We have already
done them a grievous wrong, Sword Prefect. We shall now extend them every possible
courtesy. After all … we are not Camorri.”
“Of course, Archon.”
Locke and Jean were quickly helped into their seats. When the soldiers were reasonably
certain that they wouldn’t topple over immediately, they stepped back and stood at
attention behind them. The archon waved his hand irritably.
“Dismissed, Sword Prefect.”
“But … Your Honor …”
“Out of my sight. You have already conjured a serious embarrassment from my very clear
instructions for these men. As a result, they are in no shape to be any threat to
me.”
“But … yes, Archon.”
The sword prefect gave a stiff bow, which the other three soldiers repeated. The four
of them hurriedly left the office, closing the door behind them with the elaborate
click-clack of a clockwork mechanism.
“Gentlemen,” said the archon, “you must accept my deepest apologies.
My instructions were misconstrued. You were to be given every courtesy. Instead, you
were shown to the sweltering chamber, which is reserved for criminals of the lowest
sort. I would trust my Eyes to be the equal of ten times their number in any fight,
yet in this simple matter they have dishonored me. I must take responsibility. You
must forgive this misunderstanding, and allow me the honor of showing you a better
sort of hospitality.”
Locke mustered his will to attempt a suitable response, and whispered a silent prayer
of thanks to the Crooked Warden when Jean spoke first.
“The honor is ours, Protector.” His voice was hoarse, but his wits seemed to be returning
faster than Locke’s. “The chamber was a small price to pay for the pleasure of such
an, an unexpected audience. There is nothing to forgive.”
“You are an uncommonly gracious man,” said Stragos. “Please, dispense with the superfluities.
It will do to call me ‘Archon.’ ”
There was a soft knock at the door through which the archon had entered the office.
“Come,” he said, and in bustled a short, bald man in elaborate blue-and-silver livery.
He carried a silver tray on which there were three crystal goblets and a large bottle
of some pale amber liquid. Locke and Jean fixed their gazes on this bottle with the
intensity of hunters about to fling their last javelins at some charging beast.
When the servant set the tray down and reached for the bottle, the archon gestured
for him to withdraw and took up the bottle himself.
“Go,” he said, “I am perfectly capable of serving these poor gentlemen myself.”
The attendant bowed and vanished back through the door. Stragos withdrew the already
loosened cork from the bottle and filled two goblets to their brims with its contents.
That wet gurgle and splash brought an expectant ache to the insides of Locke’s cheeks.
“It is customary,” said Stragos, “for the host to drink first when serving in this
city … to establish a basis for trust in what he happens to be serving.” He dashed
two fingers of liquid into the third goblet, lifted it to his lips, and swallowed
it at a gulp.