Authors: Scott Lynch
“You shall have any funds and material you require to operate in my service. And before
you get excited, remember that you’ll account for every last centira properly.”
“Oh, splendid. And what other perquisites does this job of yours entail? Complimentary
luncheon at the barracks of your Eyes? Convalescent beds when Requin cuts our balls
off and has them sewn into our eye sockets?”
“I am not accustomed to being spoken to in this—”
“
Get
accustomed to it,” snapped Locke, rising out of his chair and beginning to dust off
his coat. “I have a counterproposal, one I urge you to entertain quite seriously.”
“Oh?”
“Forget about this, Stragos.” Locke drew on his coat, shook his shoulders to settle
it properly, and gripped it by the lapels. “Forget about this whole ridiculous scheme.
Give us enough antidote, if there is one, to settle us for the time being. Or let
us know what it is and we’ll have our own alchemist see to it, with our own funds.
Send us back to Requin, for whom you profess no love, and let us get on with robbing
him. Bother us no further, and we’ll return the favor.”
“What could that possibly gain me?”
“My point is more that it would allow you to keep everything you have now.”
“My dear Lamora,” laughed Stragos with a soft, dry sound like an echo inside a coffin,
“your bluster may be sufficient to convince some sponge-spined Camorri mongrel don
to hand over his coin purse. It might even be enough to see you through the task I
have in mind. But you’re mine now, and the Bondsmagi were rather clear on how you
might be humbled.”
“Oh? How’s that, then?”
“Threaten me one more time and I shall have Jean returned to the sweltering room for
the rest of the night. You may wait, chained outside in perfect comfort, imagining
what it must be like for him. And the reverse, Jean, should
you
decide to wax rebellious.”
Locke clenched his jaw and looked down at his feet. Jean sighed, reached over, and
patted him on the arm. Locke nodded very slightly.
“Good.” Stragos smiled without warmth. “Just as I respect your abilities, I respect
your loyalty to one another. I respect it enough to use it, for good and for ill.
So you
will
want to come at my summons, and accept the task I have for you It’s when I
refuse
to see you that you will begin to have cause for concern.”
“So be it,” said Locke. “But I want you to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“That I offered to let this go,” said Locke. “That I offered to simply walk away.”
“Gods, but you
do
think highly of yourself, don’t you, Master Lamora?”
“Just highly enough. No higher than the Bondsmagi, I’d say.”
“Are you suggesting that Karthain fears you, Master Lamora? Please. If that were so,
they would have killed you already. No. They don’t fear you—they want to see you
punished
. Giving you over to me to suit my own purposes seems to accomplish that in their
eyes. I daresay you’ve good reason to bear them malice.”
“Indeed,” said Locke.
“Consider for a moment,” said Stragos, “the possibility that I might not like them
any more than you do. And that while I might use them, out of necessity, and freely
accept windfalls they send in my direction … your service on my behalf might actually
come to work against them. Doesn’t that intrigue you?”
“Nothing you say can be taken in good faith.” Locke glowered.
“Ahhh. That’s where you’re wrong, Lamora. With the benefit of time, you’ll see how
little need I have to lie about anything. Now, this audience is
over. Reflect on your situation, and don’t do anything rash. You may remove yourselves
from the Mon Magisteria and return when summoned.”
“Wait,” said Locke. “Just—”
The archon rose, tucked the file under his arm, turned, and left the room through
the same door he’d used to enter. It swung shut immediately behind him with the clatter
of steel mechanisms.
“Hell,” said Jean.
“I’m sorry,” muttered Locke. “I was
so
keen to come to Tal fucking Verrar.”
“It’s not your fault. We were both eager to hop in bed with the wench; it’s just shit
luck she turned out to have the clap.”
The main doors to the office creaked open, revealing a dozen Eyes waiting in the hall
beyond.
Locke stared at the Eyes for several seconds, then grinned and cleared his throat.
“Oh, good. Your master has left strict instructions placing you at our disposal. We’re
to have a boat, eight rowers, a hot meal, five hundred solari, six women who know
how to give a proper massage, and—”
One thing Locke would say for the Eyes was that when they seized him and Jean to “escort”
them from the Mon Magisteria, they were firm without being needlessly cruel. Their
clubs remained at their belts, and there were a minimal number of body blows to soften
the resolve of their prisoners. All in all, a very efficient bunch to be manhandled
by.
THEY WERE rowed back to the lower docks of the Savrola in a long gig with a covered
gallery. It was nearly dawn, and a watery orange light was coming up over the landside
of Tal Verrar, peeking over the islands and making their seaward faces seem darker
by contrast. Surrounded by the archon’s oarsmen and watched by four Eyes with crossbows,
Locke and Jean said nothing.
Their exit was quick; the boat simply drew up to the edge of one deserted quay and
Locke and Jean hopped out. One of the archon’s soldiers threw a leather sack out onto
the stones at their feet, and then the gig was backing away, and the whole damnable
episode was over. Locke felt a strange daze and he rubbed his eyes, which felt dry
within their sockets.
“Gods,” said Jean. “We must look as though we’ve been mugged.”
“We have been.” Locke reached down, picked up the sack, and examined its contents—Jean’s
two hatchets and their assortment of daggers. He grunted. “Magi. Gods-damned
Bondsmagi
!”
“This must be what they had in mind.”
“I hope it’s
all
they have in mind.”
“They’re not all-knowing, Locke. They must have weaknesses.”
“Must they really? And do you know what they are? Might one of them be allergic to
exotic foods, or suffer poor relations with his mother? Some good that does us, when
they’re well beyond dagger reach! Crooked Warden, why don’t dog’s assholes like Stragos
ever want to simply hire us for money? I’d be
happy
to work for fair pay.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Feh.”
“Quit scowling and think for a moment. You heard Stragos’ report. The Bondsmagi knew
about the preparations we’ve made for going after Requin’s vault, but they didn’t
know the
whole
story. The important part.”
“Right … but what need would there be for them to tell Stragos everything?”
“None, of course, but also … they knew where we were operating from in Camorr, but
he didn’t mention our history. Stragos spoke of Barsavi, but not Chains. Perhaps because
Chains died before the Falconer ever came to Camorr and started observing us? I don’t
think the Bondsmagi can read our thoughts, Locke. I think they’re magnificent spies,
but they’re not infallible. We still have some secrets.”
“Hmmm. Forgive me if I find that a cold comfort, Jean. You know who waxes philosophical
about the tiniest weaknesses of enemies? The
powerless
.”
“You seem resigned to that without much of a—”
“I’m not resigned, Jean. I’m angry. We need to cease being powerless as soon as possible.”
“Right. So where do we start?”
“Well, I’m going to go back to the inn. I’m going to pour a gallon of cold water down
my throat. I’m going to get into bed, put a pillow over my head, and stay there until
sunset.”
“I approve.”
“Good. Then we’ll both be well rested when it comes time to get up and find a black
alchemist. I want a second opinion on latent poisons. I want to know everything there
is to know about the subject, and whether there are any antidotes we can start trying.”
“Agreed.”
“After that, we can add one more small item to our agenda for this Tal Verrar holiday
of ours.”
“Kick the archon in the teeth?”
“Gods yes,” said Locke, smacking a fist into an open palm. “Whether or not we finish
the Requin job first. Whether or not there really is a poison! I’m going to take his
whole bloody palace and shove it so far up his ass he’ll have stone towers for tonsils!”
“Any plans to that effect?”
“No idea. I’ve no idea whatsoever. I’ll
reflect
on it, that’s for damn sure. But as for not being rash, well, no promises.”
Jean grunted. The two of them turned and began to plod along the quay, toward the
stone steps that would lead laboriously to the island’s upper tier. Locke rubbed his
stomach and felt his skin crawling … felt
violated
somehow, knowing that something lethal might be slipping unfelt into the darkest
crevices of his own body, waiting to do mischief.
On their right the sun was a burning bronze medallion coming up over the city’s horizon,
perched there like one of the archon’s faceless soldiers, gazing steadily down upon
them.
Azura Gallardine was not an easy woman to speak to. To be sure, hers was a well-known
title (second mistress of the Great Guild of Artificers, Reckoners, and Minutiary
Artisans), and her address was common knowledge (the intersection of Glassbender Street
and the Avenue of the Cog-Scrapers, West Cantezzo, Fourth Tier, Artificers’ Crescent),
but anyone approaching that home had to walk forty feet off the main pedestrian thoroughfare.
Those forty feet were one
hell
of a thing to contemplate.
Six months had passed since Locke and Jean had come to Tal Verrar; the personalities
of Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra had evolved from bare sketches to comfortable
second skins. Summer had been dying when they’d clattered down the road toward the
city for the first time, but now the hard, dry winds of winter had given way to the
turbulent breezes of early spring. It was the month of Saris, in the seventy-eighth
year of Nara, the Plaguebringer, Mistress of Ubiquitous Maladies.
Jean rode in a padded chair at the stern of a hired luxury scull, a low, sleek craft
crewed by six rowers. It sliced across the choppy waters of Tal Verrar’s main anchorage
like an insect in haste, ducking and weaving between larger vessels in accordance
with the shouted directions of a teenage girl perched in its bow.
It was a windy day, with the milky light of the sun pouring down without warmth from
behind high veils of clouds. Tal Verrar’s anchorage was crowded with cargo lighters,
barges, small boats, and the great ships of a
dozen nations. A squadron of galleons from Emberlain and Parlay rode low in the water
with the aquamarine-and-gold banners of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows fluttering
at their sterns. A few hundred yards away, Jean could see a brig flying the white
flag of Lashain, and beyond that a galley with the banner of the Marrows over the
smaller pennant of the Canton of Balinel, which was just a few hundred miles north
up the coast from Tal Verrar.
Jean’s scull was rounding the southern tip of the Merchants’ Crescent, one of three
sickle-shaped islands that surrounded the Castellana at the city’s center like the
encompassing petals of a flower. His destination was the Artificers’ Crescent, home
of the men and women who had raised the art of clockwork mechanics from an eccentric
hobby to a vibrant industry. Verrari clockwork was more delicate, more subtle, more
durable—more
anything
, as required—than that fashioned by all but a handful of masters anywhere else in
the known world.
Strangely, the more familiar Jean grew with Tal Verrar, the odder the place seemed
to him. Every city built on Eldren ruins acquired its own unique character, in many
cases shaped directly by the nature of those ruins. Camorri lived on islands separated
by nothing more than canals, or at most the Angevine River, and their existence was
shoulder-to-shoulder compared to the great wealth of space Tal Verrar had to offer.
The hundred-odd thousand souls on Tal Verrar’s seaward islands made full use of that
space, dividing themselves into tribes with unusual precision.
In the west, the poor clung to spots in the Portable Quarter, where those willing
to tolerate constant rearrangement of all their belongings by hard sea-weather could
at least live free of rent. In the east, they crowded the Istrian District and provided
labor for the tiered gardens of the Blackhands Crescent. There they grew luxury crops
they could not afford, on plots of alchemically enriched soil they could never own.
Tal Verrar had only one graveyard, the ancient Midden of Souls, which took up most
of the city’s eastern island, opposite the Blackhands Crescent. The Midden had six
tiers, studded with memorial stones, sculptures, and mausoleums like miniature mansions.
The dead were as strictly sifted in death as they’d been in life, with each successive
tier claiming a better class of corpse. It was a morbid mirror of the Golden Steps
across the bay.
The Midden itself was almost as large as the entire city of Vel Virazzo, and it sported
its own strange society—priests and priestesses of Aza Guilla, gangs of mourners-for-hire
(all of whom would loudly proclaim their ceremonial specialties or particular theatrical
flourishes to anyone within shouting distance), mausoleum sculptors, and the oddest
of all, the
Midden Vigilants. The Vigilants were criminals convicted of grave robbery. In place
of execution, they were locked into steel masks and clanking scale armor and forced
to patrol the Midden of Souls as part of a sullen constabulary. Each would be freed
only when another grave robber was captured to take his or her place. Some would have
to wait years.