by Scott Lynch
Jean grinned and cracked his knuckles, then ran a hand down the small of his back. The old familiar gesture, making sure that the Wicked Sisters were ready for a night out.
“You sure,” he said, “that you’re ready for the Vine Highway?”
“Ready as I can be, Jean. Hell, I weigh considerably less than I did before I drank that potion. Climbing down’ll be the easiest thing I do all night.”
5
THE TRELLIS ran up the full height of the Broken Tower, on the westward face of the structure, overlooking a narrow alley. The lattice of wood was threaded with tough old vines and built around the windows on each floor. Though something of a bitch to climb, it was the perfect way to avoid the few dozen familiar faces that were sure to be in the Last Mistake on any given night. The Gentlemen Bastards used the Vine Highway frequently.
The alley-side shutters banged open on the top floor of the Broken Tower; all the light inside Locke and Jean’s suite of rooms had been extinguished. A large dark shape slid out into the mass of trellised vines, and was shortly followed by a smaller shape. Clinging with white-knuckled determination, Locke gently eased the shutters closed above him, then willed his queasy stomach to quit complaining for the duration of the climb. The Hangman’s Wind, on its way out to the salty blackness of the Iron Sea, caught at his cap and cloak with invisible fingers that smelled of marshes and farmers’ fields.
Jean kept himself two or three feet under Locke, and they descended steadily, one foothold or handhold at a time. The windows on the sixth floor were shuttered and dark.
Thin slivers of amber light could be seen around the shutters on the fifth floor. Both climbers slowed without the need for words and willed themselves to be as quiet as possible; to be patches of gray invisible against deeper darkness, nothing more. They continued down.
The fifth-floor shutters flew outward as Jean was abreast with them on their left.
One hinged panel rebounded off his back, almost startling him out of his hold on the trellis. He curled his fingers tightly around wood and vine, and looked to his right. Locke stepped on his head in surprise, but quickly pulled himself back up.
“I know there’s no other way out, you miserable bitch!” hissed a man’s voice.
There was a loud thump, and then a shudder ran up and down the trellis; someone else had just gone out the window, and was scrabbling in the vines beside and just below them. A black-haired woman stuck her head out of the window, intent on yelling something in return, but when she caught sight of Jean through the cracks in her swinging shutter, she gasped. This in turn drew the attention of the man clinging just beneath her; a larger man even than Jean.
“What the hell is this shit?” he gasped. “What are you doing outside this window?”
“Amusing the gods, asshole.” Jean kicked down and tried to nudge the newcomer further down the trellis, to no avail. “Kindly heave yourself down!”
“What are you doing outside this window, huh? You like to sneak a peek? You can sneak a peek of my fist, cocksucker!”
Grunting with exertion, he began to climb back upward, grabbing at Jean’s legs. Jean narrowly yanked himself out of the way, and the world reeled around him as he regained his balance. Black wall, black sky, wet black cobblestones fifty feet below. That was a bad fall, the kind that cracked men like eggs.
“All of you, get off my damned window now! Ferenz, for Morgante’s sake, leave them be and get down!” the woman hollered.
“Shit,” Locke muttered from a few feet above and to her left, his eloquence temporarily cowed into submission. “Madam, you’re complicating our night, so before we come in and complicate yours, kindly cork your bullshit bottle and close the gods-damned window!”
She looked up, aghast. “Two of you? All of you, get down, get down, get down!”
“Close your window, close your window, close your fucking window!”
“I’ll kill both you shitsuckers,” huffed Ferenz. “Drop you both off this fucking—”
There was a marrow-chillingly loud cracking noise, and the trellis shuddered beneath the hands of the three men clinging to it.
“Ah,” said Locke. “Ah, that figures. Thanks ever so much, Ferenz.”
Then there was a torrent of polysyllabic blasphemy from four mouths; exactly who said what would never be clearly recalled. Two careful men were apparently the trellis’ limit; under the weight of three careless flailers, it began to tear free of the stone wall with a series of creaks and pops.
Ferenz surrendered to gravity and common sense and began sliding downward at prodigious speed, burning his hands as he went, all but peeling the trellis off the wall above him. It finally gave way when he was about twenty feet above the ground, flipping over and dashing him down into the darkened alley, where he was promptly covered in falling vines and wood. His descent had snapped off a section of trellis at least thirty feet long, starting just beneath Jean’s dangling feet.
Wasting no time, Locke shimmied to his right and dropped down onto the window ledge, shoving the screaming woman back with the tip of one boot. Jean scrambled upward, for the shutter still blocked his direct access to the window, and as the section of trellis under his hands began to pull out of the wall, he gracelessly swung himself over the shutter and in through the window, taking Locke with him.
They wound up in a heap on the hardwood floor, tangled in cloaks.
“Get back out the fucking window, now!” the woman screamed, punctuating each word with a swift kick to Jean’s back and ribs. Fortunately, she wasn’t wearing shoes.
“That would be stupid,” Locke said, from somewhere under his larger friend.
“Hey,” Jean said. “Hey! Hey!” He caught the woman’s foot and propelled her backward. She landed on her bed; it was the sort commonly called a “dangler”—a two-person hammock of strong but lightweight demi-silk, anchored to the ceiling at four points. She went sprawling across it, and both Locke and Jean suddenly noticed that she wasn’t wearing anything but her smallclothes. In the summer, a Camorri woman’s smallclothes are small indeed.
“Out, you bastards! Out, out! I—”
As Locke and Jean stumbled to their feet, the door on the wall opposite the window slammed open, and in stepped a broad-shouldered man with the slablike muscles of a stevedore or a smith. Vengeful satisfaction gleamed in his eyes, and the smell of hard liquor rolled off him, sour and acute even from ten paces away.
Locke wasted half a second wondering how Ferenz had gotten back upstairs so quickly, and another half second realizing that the man in the doorway wasn’t Ferenz.
He giggled, briefly but uncontrollably.
The night wind slammed the shutter against the open window behind him.
The woman made a noise somewhere in the back of her throat; a noise not unlike a cat falling down a deep, dark well.
“You filthy bitch,” the man said, his speech a thick slow drawl. “Filthy, filthy bitch. I jus’ knew it. Knew you weren’ alone.” He spat, then shook his head at Locke and Jean. “Two guys at once, too. Damn. Go figure. Guess it takes that many t’ replace me.
“Hope you boys had y’rselves a fun time with ’nother man’s woman,” he continued, drawing nine inches of blackened-steel stiletto from his left boot, “ ’cause now I’m gonna make you women.”
Jean spread his feet and moved his left hand under his cloak, ready to draw the Sisters. With his right hand, he nudged Locke a pace behind him.
“Hold it!” Locke cried, waving both of his hands. “I know what this looks like, but you’ve got the wrong idea, friend.” He pointed at the petrified woman clinging to the hanging bed. “She came before we came!”
“Gathis,” hissed the woman. “Gathis, these men attacked me! Get them! Save me!”
Gathis charged at Jean, growling. He held his knife out before him in the grip of an experienced fighter, but he was still drunk and he was still angry. Locke dodged out of the way as Jean caught Gathis by his wrist, stepped inside his reach, and sent him s
prawling to the floor with a quick sweep of the legs.
There was an unappetizing snapping noise, and the blade fell from Gathis’ grip; Jean had retained a firm hold on his wrist, and then twisted as the man went down on his back. For a moment Gathis was too bewildered to cry out; then the pain broke through to his dulled senses and he roared.
Jean hoisted him up off the ground with one quick yank by the front of his tunic, and then he shoved Gathis with all his might into the stone wall to the left of the window. The big man’s head bounced off the hard surface and he stumbled forward; the blurred arc of Jean’s right fist met his jaw with a crack, abruptly canceling his forward momentum. He flopped to the ground, boneless as a sack of dough.
“Yes!” cried the woman. “Now throw him out the window!”
“For the love of the gods, madam,” snapped Locke. “Can you please pick one man in your bedroom to cheer for and stick with him?”
“If he’s found dead in the alley beneath your window,” said Jean. “I’ll come back and give you the same.”
“And if you tell anyone that we came through here,” added Locke, “you’ll only wish he’d come back and given you the same.”
“Gathis will remember,” she screeched. “He’ll certainly remember!”
“A big man like him? Please.” Jean made a show of arranging his cloak and redonning his hat. “He’ll say it was eight men and they all had clubs.”
Locke and Jean hurried out the door through which Gathis had entered, which led to the landing of the fifth-floor steps on the north side of the tower. With the trellis damaged, there was nothing else for it but to proceed quickly down on foot and pray to the Crooked Warden. Locke drew the door closed behind them, leaving the bewildered woman sprawled on her hanging bed with the unconscious Gathis curled up beside her window.
“The luck of the gods must certainly be with us,” said Locke as they hurried down the creaking steps. “At least we didn’t lose these stupid fucking hats.”
A small dark shape hissed past them, wings fluttering, a sleek shadow visible as it swooped between them and the lights of the city.
“Well,” Locke added, “for better or worse, from this point on, I suppose we’re under the Falconer’s wing.”
INTERLUDE
Up the River
1
Jean was away at the House of Glass Roses the afternoon that Locke found out he was going to be sent up the Angevine to live on a farm for several months.
Hard rains were pounding Camorr that Idler’s Day, so Chains had taken Locke, Calo, and Galdo down into the dining room to teach them how to play Rich-Man, Beggar-Man, Soldier-Man, Duke—a card game that revolved around attempting to cheat one’s neighbor out of every last bent copper at his disposal. Naturally, the boys took to it quickly.
“Two, three, and five of Spires,” said Calo, “plus the Sigil of the Twelve.”
“Die screaming, half-wit,” said Galdo. “I’ve got a run of Chalices and the Sigil of the Sun.”
“Won’t do you any good, quarter-wit. Hand over your coins.”
“Actually,” said Father Chains, “a Sigil run beats a Sigil stand, Calo. Galdo would have you. Except—”
“Doesn’t anyone care what I’ve got in my hand?” asked Locke.
“Not particularly,” said Chains, “since nothing in the game tops a full Duke’s Hand.” He set his cards on the table and cracked his knuckles with great satisfaction.
“That’s cheating,” said Locke. “That’s six times in a row, and you’ve had the Duke’s Hand for two of them.”
“Of course I’m cheating,” said Chains. “Game’s no fun unless you cheat. When you figure out how I’m cheating, then I’ll know you’re starting to improve.”
“You shouldn’t have told us that,” said Calo.
“We’ll practice all week,” said Galdo.
“We’ll be robbing you blind,” said Locke, “by next Idler’s Day.”
“I don’t think so,” said Chains, chuckling, “since I’m sending you off on a three-month apprenticeship on Penance Day.”
“You’re what?”
“Remember last year, when I sent Calo off to Lashain to pretend to be an initiate in the Order of Gandolo? And Galdo went to Ashmere to slip into the Order of Sendovani? Well, your turn’s come. You’ll be going up the river to be a farmer for a few months.”
“A farmer?”
“Yes, you might have heard of them.” Chains gathered the cards from around the table and shuffled them. “They’re where our food comes from.”
“Yes, but … I don’t know anything about farming.”
“Of course not. You didn’t know how to cook, serve, dress like a gentleman, or speak Vadran when I bought you, either. So now you’re going to learn something else new.”
“Where?”
“Up the Angevine, seven or eight miles. Little place called Villa Senziano. It’s tenant farmers, mostly beholden to the duke or some of the minor swells from the Alcegrante. I’ll dress as a priest of Dama Elliza, and you’ll be my initiate, being sent off to work the earth as part of your service to the goddess. It’s what they do.”
“But I don’t know anything about the Order of Dama Elliza.”
“You won’t need to. The man you’ll be staying with understands that you’re one of my little bastards. The story’s just for everyone else.”
“What,” said Calo, “are we going to do in the meantime?”
“You’ll mind the temple. I’ll only be gone two days; the Eyeless Priest can be sick and locked away in his chambers. Don’t sit the steps while I’m away; people always get sympathetic if I’m out of sight for a bit, especially if I cough and hack when I return. You two and Jean can amuse yourselves as you see fit, so long as you don’t make a bloody mess of the place.”
“But by the time I get back,” said Locke, “I’ll be the worst card player in the temple.”
“Yes. Best wishes for a safe journey, Locke,” said Calo.
“Savor the country air,” said Galdo. “Stay as long as you like.”
2
THE FIVE Towers loomed over Camorr like the upstretched hand of a god; five irregular, soaring, Elderglass cylinders, dotted with turrets and spires and walkways and much curious evidence that the creatures that had designed them did not quite share the aesthetic sense of the humans who’d appropriated them.
Easternmost was Dawncatcher, four hundred feet high, its natural color a shimmery silver-red, like the reflection of a sunset sky in a still body of water. Behind it was Blackspear, slightly taller, made of an obsidian glass that shone with broken rainbows like a pool of oil. At the far side, as one might reckon by looking across the Five with Dawncatcher in the middle of one’s vision, was Westwatch, which shone with the soft violet of a tourmaline, shot through with veins of snow-white pearl. Beside it was stately Amberglass, with its elaborate flutings from which the wind would pull eerie melodies. In the middle, tallest and grandest of all, was Raven’s Reach, the palace of Duke Nicovante, which gleamed like molten silver and was crowned with the famous Sky Garden, whose lowest-hanging vine trailed in the air some six hundred feet above the ground.
A network of glassine cables (miles and miles of spun Elderglass cords had been found in the tunnels beneath Camorr, centuries before) threaded the roofs and turret tops of the Five Towers. Hanging baskets passed back and forth on these cables, drawn along by servants at huge clacking capstans. These baskets carried both passengers and cargo. Although many of the residents of lower Camorr proclaimed them mad, the nobles of the Five Families regarded the lurching, bobbing passage across the yawning empty spaces as a test of honor and courage.
Here and there, large cargo cages were being drawn up or lowered from jutting platforms on several of the towers. They reminded Locke, who stared up at all this with eyes that were not yet sated with such wonders, of the spider cages at the Palace of Patience.
He and Chains sat in a two-wheeled cart with a little walled space behind the seat,
where Chains had stashed several parcels of goods under an old canvas tarp. Chains wore the loose brown robes with green and silver trim that marked a priest of Dama Elliza, Mother of Rains and Reaping. Locke wore a plain tunic and breeches, without shoes.
Chains had their two horses (un-Gentled, for Chains misliked using the white-eyed creatures outside city walls) trotting at a gentle pace up the winding cobbles of the Street of Seven Wheels, the heart of the Millfalls district. In truth, there were more than seven wheels spinning in the white froth of the Angevine; there were more in sight than Locke could count.
The Five Towers had been built on a plateau some sixty-odd feet above the lower city; the Alcegrante islands sloped up toward the base of this plateau. The Angevine came into Camorr at that height, just to the east of the Five, and fell down a crashing six-story waterfall nearly two hundred yards across. Wheels turned at the top of these falls, within a long glass-and-stone bridge topped with wooden mill-houses.
Wheels turned beneath the falls as well, jutting out into the river on both sides, making use of the rushing white flow to work everything from grinding stones to the bellows that blew air across the fires beneath brewers’ vats. It was a district choked with business-folk and laborers alike, with escorted nobles in gilded carriages rolling here and there to inspect their holdings or place orders.
They turned east at the tip of the Millfalls and crossed a wide low bridge into the Cenza Gate district, the means by which most northbound land traffic left the city. Here was a great mess, barely controlled by a small army of yellowjackets. Caravans of wagons were rolling into the city, their drivers at the mercy of the duke’s tax and customs agents, men and women marked by their tall black brimless caps and commonly referred to (when out of earshot) as “vexationers.”
Petty merchants were pitching everything from warm beer to cooked carrots; beggars were pleading countless improbable reasons for impoverishment and claiming lingering wounds from wars that had obviously ended long before they were born. Yellowjackets were driving the most persistent or malodorous off with their black lacquered sticks. It was not yet the tenth hour of the morning.