by Scott Lynch
Jean doubted he could learn anything more about the items going out on those boats unless he did something more obvious, like attacking one of the loading crews-and that would hardly do. So tonight he’d decided to focus his attention on a certain warehouse about a block in from the docks.
The Dregs weren’t quite as far gone as Ashfall, but the place was well on its way. Buildings were falling down or falling sideways in every direction; the entire area seemed to be sinking down into a sort of swamp of rotted wood and fallen brick. Every year the damp ate a little more of the mortar between the district’s stones, and legitimate business fled elsewhere, and more bodies turned up loosely concealed under piles of debris-or not concealed at all.
While prowling in his black robes, Jean had noticed gangs of Raza’s men coming and going from the warehouse for several nights in a row. The structure was abandoned but not yet uninhabitable, as its collapsed neighbors were. Jean had observed lights burning behind its windows almost until dawn, and parties of laborers coming and going with heavy bags over their shoulders, and even a horse-cart or two.
But not tonight. The warehouse had previously been a hive of activity, and tonight it was dark and silent. Tonight it seemed to invite his curiosity, and while Locke was off sipping tea with the quality, Jean aimed to pry into Capa Raza’s business.
There were ways to do this sort of thing, and they involved patience, vigilance, and a great deal of slow walking. He went around the warehouse block several times, avoiding all contact with anyone on the street, throwing himself into whatever deep darkness was at hand and keeping his silver mask tucked under his arm to hide the glare. Given enough shadow, even a man Jean’s size could be stealthy, and he was certainly light enough on his feet.
Circling and sweeping, circling and sweeping; he established to his satisfaction that none of the roofs of nearby buildings held concealed watchers, and that there were no street-eyes either. Of course, he thought to himself as he pressed his back up against the southern wall of the warehouse, they could just be better than I am.
“Aza Guilla, have a care,” he mumbled as he edged toward one of the warehouse doors. “If you don’t favor me tonight, I’ll never be able to return this fine robe and mask to your servants. Just a consideration, humbly submitted.”
There was no lock on the door; in fact, it hung slightly ajar. Jean donned his silver mask again, then slipped his hatchets into his right hand and pushed them up the sleeve of his robe. He’d want them ready for use, but not quite visible, just in case he bumped into anyone who might still be awed by his vestments.
The door creaked slightly, and then he was into the warehouse, pressed up against the wall beside the door, watching and listening. The darkness was thick, crisscrossed by the overlying mesh of his mask. There was a strange smell in the air, above the expected smell of dirt and rotting wood-something like burnt metal.
He held his position, motionless, straining for several long minutes to catch any sound. There was nothing but the far-off creak and sigh of ships at anchor, and the sound of the Hangman’s Wind blowing out to sea. He reached beneath his robe with his left hand and drew out an alchemical light-globe, much like the one he’d carried beneath the Echo Hole. He gave it a series of rapid shakes, and it flared into incandescence.
By the pale white light of the globe he saw that the warehouse was one large open space. A pile of wrecked and rotted partitions against the far wall might have been an office at one time. The floor was hard-packed dirt, and here and there in corners or against walls were piles of debris, some under tarps.
Jean carefully adjusted the position of the globe, keeping it pressed close against his body so that it threw out light only in a forward arc. That would help to keep his activity unseen; he didn’t intend to spend more than a few minutes poking around in this place.
As he slowly paced toward the northern end of the warehouse, he became aware of another unusual odor, one that raised his hackles. Something had been dumped in this place and left to rot. Meat, perhaps…but the odor was sickly-sweet. Jean was afraid he knew what it was even before he found the bodies.
There were four of them, thrown under a heavy tarp in the northeastern corner of the building-three men and one woman. They were fairly muscular, dressed in undertunics and breeches, with heavy boots and leather gloves. This puzzled Jean until he peered at their arms and saw their tattoos. It was traditional, in Camorr, for journeymen artisans to mark their hands or arms with some symbol of their trade. Breathing through his mouth to avoid the stench, Jean shifted the bodies around until he could be sure of those symbols.
Someone had murdered a pair of glasswrights and a pair of goldsmiths. Three of the corpses had obvious stab wounds, and the fourth, the woman…she had a pair of raised purple welts on one cheek of her waxy, bloodless face.
Jean sighed and let the tarp settle back down on top of the bodies. As he did, his eye caught the glimmer of reflected light from the floor. He knelt down and picked up a speck of glass, a sort of flattened drop. It looked as though it had hit the ground in a molten state and cooled there. A brief flick of the light-globe showed him dozens of these little glass specks in the dirt around the tarp.
“Aza Guilla,” Jean whispered, “I stole these robes, but don’t hold it against these people. If I’m the only death-prayer they get, please judge them lightly, for the sorrow of their passing and the indignity of their resting place. Crooked Warden, if you could back that up somehow, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
There was a creak as the doors on the northern wall of the building were pushed open. Jean started to leap backward, but thought better of it; his light was no doubt already seen, and it would be best to play the dignified priest of Aza Guilla. His hatchets remained up his right sleeve.
The last people he expected to walk through the north door of the warehouse were the Berangias sisters.
Cheryn and Raiza wore oilcloaks, but the hoods were thrown back and their shark’s-teeth bangles gleamed by the light of Jean’s globe. Each of the sisters held a light-globe as well. They shook them, and a powerful red glare rose up within the warehouse, as though each woman were cupping fire in the palms of her hands.
“Inquisitive priest,” said one of the sisters. “A good evening to you.”
“Not the sort of place,” said the other, “where your order usually prowls without invitation.”
“My order is concerned with death in every form, and in every place.” Jean gestured toward the tarp with his light-globe. “There has been a foul act committed here; I was saying a death prayer, which is what every soul is due before it passes into the long silence.”
“Oh, a foul act. Shall we leave him to his business, Cheryn?”
“No,” said Raiza, “for his business has been curiously concerned with ours these past few nights, hasn’t it?”
“You’re right, Sister. Once or twice a-prowling, that we might excuse. But this priest has been persistent.”
“Unusually persistent.” The Berangias sisters were coming toward him, slowly, smiling like cats advancing on a crippled mouse. “On our docks and now in our warehouse…”
“Do you dare suggest,” said Jean, his heart racing, “that you intend to interfere with an envoy of the Lady of the Long Silence? Of Aza Guilla, the Goddess of Death itself?”
“Interfering’s what we do professionally, I’m afraid,” said the sister on his right. “We left the place open just in case you might want to stick your head in.”
“Hoped you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“And we know a thing or two about the Lady Most Kind ourselves.”
“Although our service to her is a bit more direct than yours.”
With that, red light gleamed on naked steel; each sister had drawn out a curved, arm-length blade-thieves’ teeth, just as Maranzalla had shown him so many years earlier. The Berangias twins continued their steady approach.
“Well,” said Jean, “if we’re already past the pleasantries, ladie
s, allow me to quit this masquerade.” Jean tossed his light-globe on the ground, reached up, pulled back his black hood, and slipped off his mask.
“Tannen!” said the sister on his right. “Well, holy shit. So you didn’t go out through the Viscount’s Gate after all.” The Berangias sisters halted, staring at him. Then they began circling to his left, moving in graceful unison, giving themselves more space to take action.
“You have some cheek,” said the other, “impersonating a priest of Aza Guilla.”
“Beg pardon? You were going to kill a priest of Aza Guilla.”
“Yes, well, you seem to have saved us from that particular blasphemy, haven’t you?”
“This is convenient!” said the other sister. “I never dreamed it’d be this easy.”
“Oh, whatever it is,” said Jean, “I guarantee it won’t be easy.”
“Did you like our work, in your little glass cellar?” The sister on the left spoke now. “Your two friends, the Sanza twins. Twins done in by twins, same wounds to the throat, same pose on the floor. Seemed appropriate.”
“Appropriate?” Jean felt new anger building like pressure at the back of his skull. He ground his teeth together. “Mark my words, bitch. I’ve been wondering how I’d feel when this moment finally came, and I have to say, I think I’m going to feel pretty fucking good.”
The Berangias sisters shrugged off their cloaks with nearly identical motions. As the oilcoth fluttered to the floor, they threw down their light-globes and drew out their other blades. Two sisters; four knives. They stared intently at Jean in the mingled red-and-white light and crouched, as they had a hundred times before crowds of screaming thousands at the Shifting Revel. As they had a hundred times before pleading victims in Capa Barsavi’s court.
“Wicked sisters,” said Jean, as he let the hatchets fall out of his right robe sleeve and into his hand, “I’d like you to meet the Wicked Sisters.”
3
“BUT DON’T take it too amiss, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia as she set her hollowed-out orange back down on her shelf. “We have a few possible remedies.”
“We might only be out of the necessary funds for a few days,” said Don Lorenzo. “I have other sources I can tap; I do have peers who would be good for the loan of a few thousand. I even have some old favors I can call in.”
“That…that is a relief, my lord and lady, quite a relief. I am pleased to hear that your…situation need not ruin our plan. And I wouldn’t call it embarrassing, not at all. If anyone knows about financial hardship, why, it would be the House of bel Auster.”
“I shall speak to several of my likely sources of a loan next Idler’s Day-which is, of course, the Day of Changes. Have you ever been to any formal celebration of the festival, Lukas?”
“I’m afraid not, Don Lorenzo. I have, previously, never been in Camorr at the Midsummer-mark.”
“Really?” Doña Sofia raised her eyebrows at her husband. “Why don’t we bring Lukas with us to the duke’s feast?”
“An excellent idea!” Don Lorenzo beamed at Locke. “Lukas, since we can’t leave until I’ve secured a few thousand more crowns anyway, why not be our guest? Every peer in Camorr will be there; every man and woman of importance from the lower city-”
“At least,” said Doña Sofia, “the ones that currently have the duke’s favor.”
“Of course,” said Lorenzo. “Do come with us. The feast will be held in Raven’s Reach; the duke opens his tower only on this one occasion every year.”
“My lord and lady Salvara, this is…quite an unexpected honor. But though I fear very much to refuse your hospitality, I also fear that it might possibly interfere with my ongoing work on our behalf.”
“Oh, come, Lukas,” said Lorenzo. “It’s four days hence; you said you’d be supervising loading the first galleon for the next few days. Take a rest from your labors and come enjoy a very singular opportunity. Sofia can show you around while I press some of my peers for the loans I need. With that money in hand, we should be able to set out just a few days after that, correct? Assuming you’ve told us of every possible complication?”
“Yes, my lord Salvara, the matter of the second galleon is the only complication we face other than your, ah, loss of fluidity. And, at any rate, even its cargo for Balinel will not be in the city until next week. Fortune and the Marrows may be favoring us once again.”
“It’s settled, then?” Doña Sofia linked hands with her husband and smiled. “You’ll be our guest at Raven’s Reach?”
“It’s accounted something of an honor,” confided the don, “to bring an unusual and interesting guest to the duke’s celebration. So we are eager to have you with us for several reasons.”
“If it would give you pleasure,” said Locke. “I fear that I am not much for celebrations, but I can set aside my work for a night to attend.”
“You won’t be sorry, Lukas,” said Doña Sofia. “I’m sure we’ll all think back very fondly on the feast when we begin our voyage.”
4
IN MANY ways, two was the worst possible number of multiple opponents in a close-quarters fight; it was nearly impossible to lead them into crowding and interfering with one another, especially if they were experienced at working together. And if anyone in Camorr was any good at fighting in tandem, it was the Berangias sisters.
Jean accounted his scant advantages as he twirled his hatchets and waited for one of the sisters to make the first move. He’d seen them in action at least a dozen times, at the Shifting Revel and in the Floating Grave. It might not do him much good, since he didn’t happen to be a shark, but it was something.
“We’ve heard that you’re supposed to be good,” said the sister on his left, and just as she spoke, the one on the right exploded forward, one knife out in a guard position and the other held low to stab. Jean sidestepped her lunge, blocked the thrusting knife with his left hatchet, and whipped the other one toward her eyes. Her second blade was already there; the hatchet rebounded off the studded handguard. She was as impossibly fast as he’d feared. So be it; he kicked out at her left knee, an easy trick he’d used to break a dozen kneecaps over the years.
Somehow, she sensed the blow coming and bent her leg to deflect it. It struck her calf, pushing her off balance but accomplishing little else. Jean disengaged his hatchets to swing at where she should be falling, but she turned her sideways fall into a whirlwind kick; she swiveled on her left hip faster than his eyes could follow, and her right leg whipped around in a blurred arc. That foot cracked against his forehead, right above his eyes, and the whole world shuddered.
Chasson. Of course. He could really learn to hate the art.
He stumbled backward; drilled instinct alone saved him from her follow-up-a straight thrust that should have punched through his solar plexus and buried her blade to the hilt. He swung his hatchets down and inward-a maneuver Don Maranzalla had jokingly referred to as the “crab’s claws”; he hooked her blade with his right-hand hatchet and yanked it sideways. That actually surprised her-Jean took advantage of her split-second hesitation to ram the tip of his other hatchet into the base of her neck. He didn’t have time for an actual swing, but he could give a pretty forceful poke. She stumbled back, coughing, and he suddenly had a few feet of space once again. He stepped back another yard. The wall of the warehouse was looming behind him, but at a range of scant inches those knives were greatly superior to his own weapons. He needed reach to swing.
The left-hand Berangias dashed forward as the one on the right faded back, and Jean swore under his breath. With his back to the wall they couldn’t try to take him from opposite sides, but he couldn’t run-and they could trade off attacks, one falling back to recover while the other sister continued to wear him down.
His temper rose again. Bellowing, he tossed both of his hatchets at his new opponent. That caught her by surprise. She sidestepped with speed that matched her sister, and the weapons whirled past on either side, one of them catching at her hair. But Jean hadn’t be
en in earnest with his gentle throw; he charged at her, hands outstretched-empty hands would do better against thieves’ teeth when opponents were close enough to kiss. The sister before him spread her blades again, confident of a quick kill, yet it was easy to underestimate Jean’s own speed if one hadn’t seen it up close before. His hands clamped down on her forearms. Putting his strength and mass to good use, he spread her arms forcefully; as expected, she raised one of her legs to give him a sharp kick.
Digging his fingers into the hard muscle of her forearms, keeping her blades firmly to the outside, he yanked as hard as he could. She flew forward, and with a smack that echoed in the warehouse, her nose met Jean’s forehead. Hot blood spattered; it was on his robes, but he hoped Aza Guilla might eventually forgive him that little indignity. Before his opponent could recover, Jean let her arms go, cupped her entire face in one of his hands, and pushed from the hip with all of his might, like a shot-putter at the Therin Throne games of old. She flew into her sister, who barely got her blades out of the way in time to avoid skewering her sibling, and the Berangias twins toppled against the tarp-covered pile of corpses.
Jean ran to the center of the warehouse floor, where his hatchets lay on the dirt. He picked them up, twirled them once, and quickly worked at the little clasp that held his robe together beneath the collar. While the sisters recovered themselves, Jean shrugged out of his robe and let it fall to the ground.
The Berangias twins advanced on him again, about ten feet apart, and now they looked distinctly upset. Gods, Jean thought, most men would take a broken nose as a sign to run like hell. But the sisters continued to bear down on him, malice gleaming in their dark eyes. The eerie red-and-white light was at their back, and it seemed to outline them in eldritch fire as they spread their blades for another pass at him.