by Scott Lynch
The answering cheer was twice as forceful (and twice as genuine, to Locke’s ears) as anything yet heard. The wooden walls reverberated with it, and Locke flinched.
“Let’s have a teeth show, then!”
All was chaos for the next few minutes. Dozens of Barsavi’s people pushed revelers back, clearing an area at the center of the floor about ten yards on a side. Revelers were pressed up the stairs until the balconies creaked beneath their weight; observation holes were cranked open so those on the top deck could peer down at the proceedings. Locke was pushed back into his corner more firmly than ever.
Men with hooked poles drew up the wooden panels of the floor, revealing the dark water of Camorr Bay. A thrill of anticipation and alarm passed through the crowd at the thought of what might be swimming down there. The unquiet spirits of eight Full Crowns, for one thing, thought Locke.
As the final panels in the center of the opening square were removed, almost everyone present could see the little support platforms on which they’d rested, not one wider than a man’s hand-spread. They were spaced about five feet apart. Barsavi’s arena for his own private teeth shows-a challenge for any contrarequialla, even a pair as experienced as the Berangias sisters.
Cheryn and Raiza, old hands at teasing a crowd, were stripping out of their leather doublets, bracers, and collars. They took their graceful time while the capa’s subjects hooted approval, hoisted cups and glasses, and in some cases even shouted unlikely propositions.
Anjais hurried forward with a little packet of alchemical powders in his hands. He dumped this into the water, then took a prudent step back. This was the “summons”-a potent mix of substances that would rouse the shark’s ire and maintain it for the duration of the contest. Blood in the water could attract and enrage a shark, but the summons would make it utterly drunk with the urge to attack-to leap, thrash, and roll at the women jumping back and forth across their little platforms.
The Berangias sisters stepped forward to nearly the edge of the artificial pool, holding their traditional weapons: the pick-head axes and the short javelins. Anjais and Pachero stood behind them and just to their left; the Capa remained standing by his chair, clapping his hands and grinning broadly.
A black fin broke the surface of the pool; a tail thrashed. There was a brief splash of water, and the electric atmosphere of the crowd intensified. Locke could feel it washing over him-lust and fear entwined, a powerful, animalistic sensation. The crowd had backed off about two yards from any edge of the pool, but still some in the front ranks were shaking nervously, and a few were trying to push their way farther back through the crowd, to the delight and derision of those around them.
In truth, the shark couldn’t have been longer than five or six feet; some of those used at the Shifting Revel reached twice that length. Still, a fish like that could easily maim on the leap, and if it dragged a person down into the water with it, well, raw size would mean little in such an uneven contest.
The Berangias sisters threw up their arms, then turned as one to the capa. The sister on the right-Raiza? Cheryn? Locke had never learned the trick of telling them apart… And at the thought his heart ached for the Sanzas. Playing deftly to the crowd, Barsavi put up his hands and looked around at his court. When they cheered him on, he stepped down between the ladies and received a kiss on the cheek from each of them.
The water stirred just before the three of them; a sleek black shadow swept past the edge of the pool, then dove down into the lightless depths. Locke could feel five hundred hearts skip a beat, and the breath in five hundred throats catch. His own concentration seemed to peak, and he caught every detail of that moment as though it were frozen before him, from the eager smile on Barsavi’s round red face to the rippling reflection of chandelier light on the water.
“Camorr!” cried the Berangias sister to the capa’s right. Again, the noise of the crowd died, this time as though one gigantic windpipe had been slit. Five hundred pairs of eyes were fixed on the capa and his bodyguards.
“We dedicate this death,” she continued, “to Capa Vencarlo Barsavi, our lord and patron!”
“Well does he deserve it,” said the other.
The shark exploded out of the pool immediately before them-a sleek dark devilish thing, with black lidless eyes and white teeth gaping. A ten-foot fountain of water rose up with it, and it half somersaulted in midair, falling forward, falling…
Directly atop Capa Barsavi.
Barsavi put up his arms to shield himself; the shark came down with its mouth wide open around one of them. The fish’s muscle-heavy body slammed hard against the wood floor, yanking Barsavi down with it. Those implacable jaws squeezed tight, and the capa screamed as blood gushed from just beneath his right shoulder, running out across the floor and down the shark’s blunt snout.
His sons dashed forward to his aid. The Berangias sister to the right looked down at the shark, shifted her weight fluidly to a fighting stance, raised her gleaming axe, and whirled with all the strength of her upper body behind the blow.
Her blade smashed Pachero Barsavi’s head just above his left ear; the tall man’s optics flew off and he staggered forward, his skull caved in, dead before his knees hit the deck.
The crowd screamed and surged, and Locke prayed to the Benefactor to preserve him long enough to make sense of whatever happened next.
Anjais gaped at his struggling father and his falling brother. Before he could utter a single word the other Berangias stepped up behind him, reached around to press her javelin shaft up beneath his chin, and buried the spike of her axe in the back of his head. He spat blood and toppled forward, unmoving.
The shark writhed and tore at the capa’s right arm, while he screamed and beat at its snout until his left hand was scraped bloody by the creature’s abrasive skin. With a final sickening wrench, the shark tore his right arm completely off and slid backward into the water, leaving a broad red streak on the wooden deck behind it. Barsavi rolled away, spraying blood from the stump of his arm, staring at the bodies of his sons in uncomprehending terror. He tried to stumble up.
One of the Berangias sisters kicked him back to the deck.
There was a tumult behind the fallen Capa; several Red Hands rushed forward, weapons drawn, hollering incoherently. What happened next was a blurry, violent mystery to Locke’s untrained eyes, but the two half-clothed Berangias dealt with half a dozen armored men with a brutality the shark would have envied. Javelins flew, axes whirled, throats opened, and blood spurted. The last Red Hand was slumping to the deck, his face a jagged scarlet ruin, perhaps five seconds after the first had charged forward.
There was brawling on the balconies, now-Locke could see men pushing their way through the crowds, men in heavy gray oilcloaks, armed with crossbows and long knives. Some of Barsavi’s guards stood back and did nothing; some attempted to flee; others were taken from behind by their cloaked assailants and killed out of hand. Crossbow strings sang; bolts whirred through the air. There was a resounding bang to Locke’s left. The great doors to the ballroom had slammed shut, seemingly of their own accord, and the clockwork mechanisms within were whirring and clicking. People battered at them uselessly.
One of Barsavi’s men pushed his way out of a crowd of panicking, shoving Right People and raised a crossbow at the Berangias sisters, who stood over the wounded capa like lionesses guarding a kill. A dark streak fell on him from out of the shadowy corners of the ceiling; there was an inhuman screech, and the shot went far awry, hissing above the sisters’ heads to strike the far wall. The guard batted furiously at the brown shape that flapped back into the air on long curving wings-then he put a hand to his neck, staggered, and fell flat on his face.
“Remain where you are,” boomed a voice with an air of assured command. “Remain where you are and attend.”
The command had a greater effect than Locke would have expected. He even felt his own fear dimming down, his own urge to flee vanishing. The wailing and screaming of the crowd quie
ted; the pounding on the great doors ceased; an eerie calm rapidly fell on what had been the exultant court of Capa Barsavi, not two minutes earlier.
The hairs on the back of Locke’s neck stood up; the change in the crowd was not natural. He might have missed it, but that he’d been under its influence before. There was sorcery in the air. He shivered despite himself. Gods, I hope coming here was as wise an idea as it seemed.
The Gray King was suddenly there with them.
It was as though he’d stepped out of a door that opened from thin air, just beside the capa’s chair. He wore his cloak and mantle, and he stepped with a hunter’s easy assurance across the bodies of the Red Hands. At his side strode the Falconer, with a gauntleted fist held up to the air. Vestris settled upon it, pulled in her wings, and screeched triumphantly. There were gasps and murmurs in the crowd.
“No harm will come to you,” said the Gray King. “I’ve done what harm I came to do tonight.” He stepped up between the Berangias sisters and looked down at Capa Barsavi, who was writhing and moaning on the deck at his feet.
“Hello, Vencarlo. Gods, but you’ve looked better.”
Then the Gray King swept back his hood, and once again Locke saw those intense eyes, the hard lines of the face, the dark hair with streaks of gray, the lean rugged countenance. And he gasped, because he finally realized what had nagged him during his first meeting with the Gray King, that odd familiarity.
All the pieces of that particular puzzle were before him. The Gray King stood between the Berangias sisters, and it was now plain to Locke’s eye that they were siblings-very nearly triplets.
3
“CAMORR,” SHOUTED the Gray King, “the reign of the Barsavi family is at an end!”
His people had taken firm control of the crowd; there were perhaps two dozen of them, in addition to the Berangias sisters and the Falconer. The fingers of the mage’s left hand curled and twisted and flexed, and he muttered under his breath as he gazed around the room. Whatever spell he was weaving did its part to calm the crowd, but no doubt the three black rings visible on his exposed wrist arrested the attention of the revelers as well.
“In fact,” said the Gray King, “the Barsavi family is at an end. No more sons or daughters, Vencarlo. I wanted you to know, before you died, that I had wiped the disease of your loins from the face of the world.
“In the past,” he shouted, “you have known me as the Gray King. Well, now I am out of the shadows. That name is not to be spoken again. Henceforth, you may call me…Capa Raza.”
Raza, thought Locke. Throne Therin for “vengeance.” Not subtle.
Very little about the Gray King, he was learning to his sorrow, actually was.
Capa Raza, as he now styled himself, bent over Barsavi, who was weak with blood loss, whimpering in pain. Raza reached down and pried the capa’s signature ring from his remaining hand. He held this up for all the crowd to behold, then slid it onto the fourth finger of his own left hand.
“Vencarlo,” said Capa Raza, “I have waited so many years to see you like this. Now your children are dead, and your office is passed to me, along with your fortress and your treasure. Every legacy you thought to leave to someone of your name is in my hands. I have erased you from history itself. Does that suit your fancy, scholar? Like an errant chalk mark upon a slate. I have wiped you clean away.
“Do you remember the slow death of your wife? How she trusted your Berangias sisters to the very end? How they would bring her meals to her? She didn’t die of stomach tumors. It was black alchemy. I wanted to do something to whet my appetite, during the long years I spent building this death for you.” Capa Raza grinned with demonic mirth. “Lingered in pain, didn’t she? Well, it wasn’t an act of the gods, Vencarlo. Like everyone else you loved, she died because of you.”
“Why?” Barsavi’s voice was weak and small.
Capa Raza knelt beside him, cradled his head almost tenderly, and whispered in his ear for several long moments. Barsavi stared up at him when he was finished, jaw slack, eyes wide with disbelief, and Raza nodded slowly.
He yanked Barsavi’s head up and backward by his beards. A stiletto fell into his other hand from within his sleeve, and he rammed it into the underside of Vencarlo Barsavi’s exposed chins, all the way to the hilt. Barsavi kicked weakly, just once.
Capa Raza stood up, withdrawing the blade. The Berangias sisters grabbed their former master by his lapels and slid him into the dark water of the bay, which received his body as readily as it had taken his victims and his enemies, over all the long years of his rule.
“One capa rules Camorr,” said Raza, “and now it is me. Now it is me!” He raised the bloody stiletto over his head and gazed around the room, as though inviting disagreement. When none came forth, he continued.
“It is not my intention merely to remove Barsavi, but to replace him. My reasons are my own. So now there is business between myself and all the rest of you, all the Right People.” He gazed slowly around the room, his arms folded before him, his chin thrust out like a conquering general in an old bronze sculpture.
“You must hear my words, and then come to a decision.”
4
“NOTHING THAT you have achieved shall be taken from you,” he continued. “Nothing that you have worked or suffered for will be revoked. I admire the arrangements Barsavi built, as much as I hated the man who built them. So this is my word.
“All remains as it was. All garristas and their gangs will control the same territories; they will pay the same tribute, on the same day, once a week. The Secret Peace remains. As it was death to breach under Barsavi’s rule, so shall it be death under mine.
“I claim all of Barsavi’s offices and powers. I claim all of his dues. In justice, I must therefore claim his debts and his responsibilities. If any man can show that he was owed by Barsavi, he will now be owed the same by Capa Raza. First among them is Eymon Danzier… Step forward, Eymon.”
There was a murmur and a ripple in the crowd to Capa Raza’s right; after a few moments, the skinny man Locke remembered very well from the Echo Hole was pushed forward, obviously terrified. His bony knees all but knocked together.
“Eymon, be at ease.” Raza held out his left hand, palm down, fingers splayed, as Barsavi had once done for every single person watching. “Kneel to me and name me your capa.”
Shaking, Eymon dropped to one knee, took Raza’s hand, and kissed the ring. His lips came away wet with Barsavi’s blood. “Capa Raza,” he said, in an almost pleading tone.
“You did a very brave thing at the Echo Hole, Eymon. A thing few men would have done in your place. Barsavi was right to promise you much for it, and I will make good on that promise. You will have a thousand crowns, and a suite of rooms, and such comforts that men with many long years of life ahead of them will pray to the gods to put them in your place.”
“I…I…” Tears were actually pouring out of the man’s eyes. “I wasn’t sure what you would…thank you, Capa Raza. Thank you.”
“I wish you much pleasure, for the service you have given me.”
“Then…it wasn’t…it wasn’t you, at the Echo Hole, if I may ask, Capa Raza.”
“Oh, no, Eymon.” Raza laughed, a deep and pleasant sound. “No, that was but an illusion.”
In the far corner of the Floating Grave’s ballroom, that particular illusion fumed silently to himself, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Tonight you have seen me with blood on my hands,” Raza shouted, “and you have seen them open in what I hope will be seen as true generosity. I am not a difficult man to get along with; I want us to prosper together. Serve me as you served Barsavi, and I know it will be so. I ask you, garristas, who will bend the knee and kiss my ring as your capa?”
“The Rum Hounds,” shouted a short, slender woman at the front of the crowd on the ballroom floor.
“The Falselight Cutters,” cried another man. “The Falselight Cutters say aye!”
That doesn’t make any gods-dam
ned sense, thought Locke. The Gray King murdered their old garristas. Are they playing some sort of game with him?
“The Wise Mongrels!”
“The Catchfire Barons.”
“The Black Eyes.”
“The Full Crowns,” came another voice, and an echoing chorus of affirmations. “The Full Crowns stand with Capa Raza!”
Suddenly Locke wanted to laugh out loud. He put a fist to his mouth and turned the noise into a stifled cough. It was suddenly obvious. The Gray King hadn’t just been knocking off Barsavi’s most loyal garristas. He must have been cutting deals with their subordinates, beforehand.
Gods, there had been more Gray King’s men in the room out of costume than in…waiting for the evening’s real show to commence.
A half dozen men and women stepped forward and knelt before Raza at the edge of the pool, wherein the shark hadn’t shown so much as a fin since forcibly relieving Barsavi of his arm.
The damned Bondsmage certainly has a way with animals, Locke thought, with mixed anger and jealousy. He found himself feeling very small indeed before each display of the Falconer’s arts.
One by one the garristas knelt and made their obeisance to the Capa, kissing his ring and saying “Capa Raza” with real enthusiasm. Five more stepped forward to kneel directly afterward, apparently giving in to the direction they felt events to be slipping. Locke calculated rapidly. With just the pledges he’d already received, Raza could now call three or four hundred Right People his own. His overt powers of enforcement had increased substantially.
“Then we are introduced,” said Raza to the entire crowd. “We are met, and you know my intentions. You are free to return to your business.”
The Falconer made a few gestures with his free hand. The clockwork mechanisms within the doors to the hall clattered in reverse, and the doors clicked open.
“I give the undecided three nights,” Capa Raza shouted. “Three nights to come to me here and bend the knee, and swear to me as they did to Barsavi. I devoutly wish to be lenient-but I warn you, now is not the time to anger me. You have seen my work; you know I have resources Barsavi lacked. You know I can be merciless when I am moved to displeasure. If you are not content serving beneath me, if you think it might be wiser or more exciting to oppose me, I will make one suggestion: pack what fortune you have and leave the city by the landward gates. If you wish to part ways, no harm will come to you from my people. For three nights, I give you my leave and my parole.