Authors: Scott Lynch
“Ahh,” he said as he passed the full goblets over to Locke and Jean without further
hesitation. “There now. Drink up. No need to be delicate. I’m an old campaigner.”
Locke and Jean were anything but delicate; they gulped down the offered drinks with
grateful abandon. Locke wouldn’t have cared if the offering had been squeezed earthworm
juice, but it was in fact some sort of pear cider, with just the slightest bite. A
child’s liquor, barely capable of intoxicating
a sparrow, and an astute choice, given their condition. The tart, cold cider coated
the inside of Locke’s tortured throat, and he shuddered with pleasure.
He and Jean thrust out their empty goblets without thinking, but Stragos was already
waiting with the bottle in hand. He refilled their cups, smiling benevolently. Locke
inhaled half of his new goblet, then forced himself to make the second half last.
Already a new strength seemed to be radiating outward from his stomach, and he sighed
with relief.
“Many thanks, Archon,” he said. “May I, ah, presume to ask how Jerome and I have offended
you?”
“Offended me? Not at all.” Stragos, still smiling, set down the bottle and seated
himself behind the little table. He reached toward the wall and pulled a silk cord;
a shaft of pale amber light fell from the ceiling, illuminating the center of the
table. “What you’ve done, young fellows, is catch my interest.”
Stragos sat framed by the shaft of light, and Locke studied him for the first time.
A man of very late middle years, surely nearing sixty if not already past it. A strangely
precise man, with squared-off features. His skin was pink and weathered, his hair
a flat gray roof. In Locke’s experience, most powerful men were either ascetics or
gluttons; Stragos seemed neither—a man of balance. And his eyes were shrewd, shrewd
as a usurer with a client in need. Locke sipped at his pear cider and prayed for wit.
The golden light was caught and reflected by the glass cells that walled the room,
and when Locke let his eyes wander for a moment he was startled to see their contents
moving. The little fluttering shadows were butterflies, moths, beetles—hundreds of
them, perhaps thousands. Each one in its own little glass prison.… The archons study
was walled in with the largest insect collection Locke had ever heard of, let alone
seen with his own eyes. Beside him, Jean gasped, evidently having noticed the same
thing. The archon chuckled indulgently.
“My collection. Is it not striking?”
He reached toward the wall again and pulled another silken cord; soft white light
grew behind the glass walls, until the full details of each specimen became plainly
visible. There were butterflies with scarlet wings, blue wings, green wings … some
with multicolored patterns more intricate than tattoos. There were gray, black, and
gold moths, with curled antennae. There were beetles with burnished carapaces that
gleamed like precious metals, and wasps with translucent wings flickering above their
sinister tapered bodies.
“It’s incredible,” said Locke. “How can it be possible?”
“Oh, it isn’t. They’re all artificial, the best artistry and artisanry can provide.
A clockwork mechanism several floors below works a set of bellows, sending gusts of
air up shafts behind the walls of this office. Each cell has a tiny aperture at the
rear. The fluttering of the wings seems quite random and realistic.… In semidarkness,
one might never realize the truth.”
“It’s no less incredible,” said Jean.
“Well, this is the City of Artifice,” said the archon. “Living creatures can require
such tedious care. You might think of my Mon Magisteria as a repository of artificial
things. Here, drink up, and let me pour you the last of the bottle.”
Locke and Jean obliged, and Stragos was able to give them each a few fingers more
before the bottle was drained. He settled himself back down behind his table and pulled
something off the silver tray—a slim file of some sort, wrapped in a brown cover with
broken wax seals on three sides.
“Artificial things. Just as you are artificial things, Master Kosta and Master de
Ferra. Or should I say, Master Lamora and Master Tannen?”
If Locke had possessed the strength to crush heavy Verrari crystal with his bare hands,
the archon would have lost a goblet.
“I beg your pardon,” said Locke, adopting a helpful, slightly confused smile, “but
I don’t know anyone by those names. Jerome?”
“There must be some mistake,” said Jean, picking up Locke’s exact tone of polite bewilderment.
“No mistake, gentlemen,” said the archon. He slipped the file open and briefly examined
the contents, about a dozen pages of parchment covered in neat black script. “I received
a very curious letter several days ago, through secure channels within my intelligence
apparatus. A letter rich with the most singular collection of stories. From a personal
acquaintance—a source within the hierarchy of the Bondsmagi of Karthain.”
Not even Jean’s hands could squeeze a Verrari crystal goblet to fragments, Locke thought,
or that moment might have seen the archon’s office decorated with an exploding cloud
of shards and blood.
Locke gamely raised an eyebrow, refusing to give in just yet. “The Bondsmagi? Gods,
that sounds ominous. But, ah, what would Bondsmagi have to do with Jerome and myself?”
Stragos stroked his chin while he skimmed the documents in the file. “Apparently,
you’re both thieves from some sort of secret enclave formerly operating out of the
House of Perelandro in Camorr’s Temple District—cheeky, that. You operated without
the permission of Capa Vencarlo Barsavi, no longer among the breathing. You stole
tens of thousands of
crowns from several dons of Camorr. You are jointly responsible for the death of one
Luciano Anatolius, a buccaneer captain who hired a Bondsmage to aid his plans. Perhaps
most importantly, you foiled those plans and crippled that Bondsmage. Overcame him,
at close quarters. Extraordinary. You shipped him back to Karthain half-dead and quite
mad. No fingers, no tongue.”
“Actually, Leocanto and I are from Talisham, and we’re—”
“You’re both from Camorr. Jean Estevan Tannen, which is your real name, and Locke
Lamora—which
isn’t
yours. That’s emphasized for some reason. You’re in my city as part of a scheme against
that scrub Requin—supposedly, you’ve been making preparations to break into his vault.
Best
of luck there. Need we continue with your charade? I have many more details. It seems
that the Bondsmagi have it in for you.”
“Those assholes,” muttered Locke.
“I see you
are
personally acquainted with them,” said Stragos. “I’ve hired a few of them in the
past. They’re a touchy bunch. So you’ll admit to the truth of this report? Come, Requin
is no friend of mine. He’s in with the Priori; might as well be on their damn councils.”
Locke and Jean looked at each other, and Jean shrugged. “Very well,” said Locke. “You
seem to have us at quite a disadvantage, Archon.”
“To be precise, I have you at three. I have this report extensively documenting your
activities. I have you here at the center of all my power. And now, for the sake of
my own comfort, I have you on a leash.”
“Meaning what?” said Locke.
“Perhaps my Eyes did
not
embarrass me, gentlemen. Perhaps you two were
intended
to spend a few hours in the sweltering chamber, to help you work up a thirst that
needed quenching.” He gestured at Locke and Jean’s goblets, which now held only dregs.
“You put something else in the cider,” said Jean.
“Of course,” said Stragos. “An excellent little poison.”
FOR A moment, the room was utterly silent, save for the soft fluttering of artificial
insect wings. Then Locke and Jean stumbled up from their chairs in unison, but Stragos
didn’t so much as twitch. “Sit down. Unless you’d prefer
not
to hear exactly what’s going on.”
“You drank from the same bottle,” said Locke, still standing.
“Of course I did. It wasn’t actually in the cider. It was in your goblets,
painted into the bottoms. Colorless and tasteless. A proprietary alchemical substance,
quite expensive. You should be flattered. I’ve increased your net personal worth,
heh.”
“I know a thing or two about poisons. What is it?”
“What would be the sense in telling you anything more? You might attempt to have someone
assemble an antidote. As it stands, your only possible source for your antidote is
me.” He smiled, every pretense of contrite gentility shed from his features like a
molted insect’s husk. A very different Stragos was with them now, and there was a
lash in his voice. “Sit down. You’re at my disposal now, obviously. You’re not what
I might have wanted, by the gods, but perhaps just what I can best put to use.”
Locke and Jean settled back into their chairs uneasily. Locke threw his goblet down
onto the carpet, where it bounced and rolled to a halt beside Stragos’ table.
“You might as well know,” said Locke, “that I’ve been poisoned for coercive purposes
before.”
“Have you? How convenient. Then surely you’ll agree it’s better than being poisoned
for murderous ones.”
“What would you have us do?”
“Something useful,” said Stragos. “Something grand. According to this report, you’re
the Thorn of Camorr. My agents brought me stories of you … the most ridiculous rumors,
which now turn out to have been true. I thought you were a myth.”
“The Thorn of Camorr
is
a myth,” said Locke. “And it was never just me. We’ve always worked as a group, as
a team.”
“Of course. No need to stress Master Tannen’s importance to me. It’s all here, in
this file. I shall keep you both alive while I prepare for the task I have in mind
for you. I’m not ready to discuss it yet, so let us say that I’m keeping you on retainer
in the meantime. Go about your business. When I call, you will come.”
“Will we?” spat Locke.
“Oh, it’s well within your power to leave the city—and if you do, you will both die
rather slow and miserable deaths before another season passes. And that would disappoint
us all.”
“You could be bluffing,” said Jean.
“Yes, yes, but if you’re rational men, a bluff would hold you as surely as a real
poison, would it not? But come now, Tannen. I have the resources
not
to bluff.”
“And what’s to keep us from running after we’ve received the antidote?”
“The poison is latent, Lamora. It slumbers within the body for many,
many months, if not years. I will dole out your antidote at intervals so long as you
please me.”
“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll continue to give us the antidote once we’ve
done whatever task you’d set us to?”
“You have none.”
“And no better alternatives.”
“Of course not.”
Locke closed his eyes and gently massaged them with the knuckles of his index fingers.
“Your alleged poison. Will it interfere with our daily lives in any way? Will it complicate
matters of judgment, agility, or health?”
“Not at all,” said Stragos. “You won’t notice a thing until the time for the antidote
is well past, and then you’ll notice a great deal all at once. Until then, your affairs
will be unimpeded.”
“But you have
already
impeded our affairs,” said Jean. “We’re at a very delicate point in our dealings
with Requin.”
“He gave us strict orders,” said Locke, “to do nothing suspicious while he sniffs
around our recent activities. Disappearing from the streets in the care of the archon’s
people would
probably
qualify as suspicious.”
“Already taken into consideration,” said the archon. “Most of the people who pulled
you two off the street are in one of Requin’s gangs. He just doesn’t know they work
for me. They’ll report seeing you out and about, even if others do not.”
“Are you confident that Requin is blind to their true loyalty?”
“Gods bless your amusing insolence, Lamora, but I’m not going to justify my every
order to you. You’ll accept them like my other soldiers, and if you must trust, trust
in the judgment that has kept me seated as archon for fifteen years.”
“It’s our lives under Requin’s thumb if you’re wrong, Stragos.”
“It’s your lives under
my
thumb, regardless.”
“Requin is no fool!”
“Then why are you attempting to steal from him?”
“We flatter ourselves,” said Jean, “that we’re—”
“I’ll tell you why,” Stragos interrupted. He closed his file and folded his hands
atop it. “You’re not just greedy. You two have an unhealthy lust for excitement. The
contemplation of long odds must positively get you drunk. Or else why choose the life
you have, when you could have obviously succeeded as thieves of a more mundane stripe,
within the limits allowed by that Barsavi?”
“If you think that little pile of papers gives you enough knowledge to presume so
much—”
“You two are risk-takers. Exceptional, professional risk-takers. I have just the risk
for you to take. You might even enjoy it.”
“That might have been true,” said Locke, “before you told us about the cider.”
“Obviously I know that what I’ve done will give you cause to bear me malice. Appreciate
my position. I’ve done this to you because I respect your abilities. I
can’t
afford to have you in my service without controls. You’re a lever and a fulcrum,
you two, looking for a city to turn upside down.”
“Why the hell couldn’t you just hire us?”
“How would money be sufficient leverage for two men who can conjure it as easily as
you?”
“So the fact that you’re screwing us like a Jeremite cot doxy is really a very sweet
compliment?” said Jean. “You fucking—”
“Calm down, Tannen,” said Stragos.
“Why should he?” Locke straightened his sweat-rumpled tunic and began tying his wrinkled
neck-cloths back on in an agitated huff. “You poison us, lay a mysterious task at
our feet, and offer no pay. You complicate our lives as Kosta and de Ferra, and you
expect to summon us at your leisure when you condescend to reveal this chore. Gods.
What about expenses, should we incur them?”