Red Seas Under Red Skies gb-2

by Scott Lynch 2007

  “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 obviously have 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 V 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 neckcloths 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?”

  “You shall have any funds and materials 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? Complementary 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 from his chair and beginning to dust off his coat. “I have a counter-proposal, 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 favour.” “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 chamber 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 would appear 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 he 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 by which to be manhandled.

  5

  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 look 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 exam— ined its contents — Jean’s two hatchets and their assortment of daggers. He grunted. “Magi. Godsdamned 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 arseholes like Stragos ever want to simply hire us for money? I’d be happy to work for fair pay” “No, you wouldn’t.” “Feh.”

  “Stop scowling and think for a moment. You heard Stragos’s report. The Bondsmagi know about the preparations we’ve made for going after Requin’s vault, b
ut they don’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.”

  “Hrnmm. 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 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 arse 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… he 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.

  REMINISCENCE

  The Lady of the Glass Pylon

  1

  Azura Gallardine was not an easy woman to speak to. lb be sure, hers was a well-known name (Second Mistress of the Great Guild of Artificers, Reckoners and Minutiaiy 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 thed’r clattered down the road toward the city for the first time, but now the hard, dry winds of winter had given way to die 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 centre 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-thousand-odd souls on its 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 labour 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 thed’r 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 specialities 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 armour 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.

  Tal Verrar had no hangings, no beheadings and none of the fights between convicted criminals and wild animals that were popular virtually everywhere else. In Tal Verrar, those convicted of capital crimes simply vanished, along with most of the city’s garbage, into the Midden Deep. This was an open square pit, forty feet on a side, located to the north of the Midden of Souls. Its Elderglass walls plunged into absolute darkness, giving no hint as to how far down they truly went. Popular lore held that it was bottomless, and criminals prodded off the execution planks usually went screaming and pleading. The worst rumour about the place, of course, was that those thrown down into the Deep did not die… but somehow continued falling. For ever.

  “Hard larboard!” cried the girl at the bow of the scull. The rowers on Jean’s left yanked their oars out of the water and the ones on the right pulled hard, sliding the craft just out of the way of a cargo galley crammed with fairly alarmed cattle. A man at the side rail of the galley shook his fist down at the scull as it passed, perhaps ten feet beneath the level of his boots. “Get the shit out of your eyes, you undergrown cunt!” “Go back to pleasuring your cattle, you soft-dicked cur!”

  “You bitch! You cheeky bitch! Heave-to a
nd I’ll show you who’s soft-dicked! Begging your pardon, gracious sir.”

  Seated in his thronelike chair, dressed in a velvet frock coat with enough gold fripperies to sparkle even in the weak fight of an overcast day, Jean looked very much a man of consequence. It was important for the man on the galley to ensure that his verbal salvoes were accurately received; while they were an accepted part of life on the harbour in Tal Verrar, the moneyed class were always treated as though they were somehow levitating above the water, entirely independent of the vessels and labourers carrying them. Jean waved nonchalantly.

  “I don’t need to get any closer to know it’s soft, lard-cock!” The girl made a rude gesture with both hands. “I can see how disappointed your fucking cows are from here!”

  With that, the scull was out of range of any audible reply; the galley fell away to the stern and the south-western edge of the Artificers” Crescent grew before them. “For that,” said Jean, “an extra silver volani for everyone here.”

  As the increasingly cheerful girl and her enthusiastic team pulled him steadily toward the docks of the Artificers” Crescent, Jean’s eyes were drawn by a tumult on the water a few hundred yards to his left. A cargo-lighter flagged with some sort of Verrari guild banner Jean didn’t recognize was surrounded by at least a dozen smaller craft. Men and women from the boats were trying to clamber aboard the cargo-lighter, while the outnumbered crew of the larger vessel attempted to fend them off with oars and a water-pump. A boat full of constables seemed to be approaching, but was still several minutes off. “Now, what the hell’s that?” Jean yelled to the girl.

  “What? Where? Oh, that. That’s the Quill-Pen Rebellion, up to business as usual.” “Quill-Pen Rebellion?”