by Scott Lynch
“Gods’ immaculate piss,” muttered Locke.
“What are the limits on our behavior?” said Jean.
“As far as the ungifted are concerned, not many. You’ll be working with people eager to help you break every election law ever scribed, so long as you don’t do anything bloody or vulgar.”
“No violence?” said Locke.
“Brawls are a natural consequence of enthusiasm,” said Patience. “Everyone loves to hear about a good fistfight. But keep it at fists. No weapons, no corpses. You can knock a few Karthani about, and make whatever threats you like, but you cannot kill anyone. Nor can you kidnap any citizen of Karthain, or physically remove them from the city. Those rules are enforced by my people. I should think the reasons are obvious.”
“Right. You’re not paying us to assassinate the entire Black Iris bunch and ride off into the sunset.”
“Your own situation is more ambiguous,” said Patience. “You two, and your counterpart controlling the Black Iris, should expect anything, including kidnapping. Guard your own backs. Only outright murder is forbidden in your respect.”
“Well, that’s cheery,” said Locke. “About this counterpart, what do we get to know?”
“You know quite a bit already.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s uncomfortable news,” said Patience, “but we’ve learned that at least one person within the ranks of my faction is passing information to Archedama Foresight.”
“Well, that’s bloody careless of you!”
“We’re working on the situation. At any rate, Foresight and her associates learned of my intention to hire you several weeks ago. They acquired a direct countermeasure.”
“Meaning what?”
“You and Jean have a unique background in deception, disguise, and manipulation. You’re a rare breed. In fact, there’s only one other person left in the world with intimate knowledge of your methods and training—”
Locke shot to his feet as though his chair were a crossbow and the trigger had been pulled. His glass flew, spilling watered wine across the tabletop.
“No,” he said. “No. You’re fucking kidding. No.”
“Yes,” said Patience. “My rivals have hired your old friend Sabetha Belacoros to be their exemplar. She’s been in Karthain for several days now, making her preparations. It’s a fair bet that she’s laying surprises for the two of you as we speak.”
II CROSS-PURPOSES
When the rose’s flash to the sunset
Reels to the rack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”—Maybe I’ll tell you then—
some other time.
—Carl Sandburg from “The Great Hunt”
INTERLUDE: STRIKING SPARKS
1
IT WAS COOL and dark in the Elderglass burrow of the Gentlemen Bastards, and far quieter than usual, when Locke awoke with the certain knowledge that someone was staring at him. He caught his breath for an instant, then mimicked the deep, slow breathing of sleep. He squinted and scanned the gray darkness of the room, wondering where everyone was.
Down the hall from the kitchen there were four rooms, or, more appropriately, four cells. They had dark curtains for doors. One belonged to Chains, another to Sabetha, the third to the Sanzas, and the fourth to Locke and Jean. Jean should have been on his cot against the opposite wall, just past their little shelf of books and scrolls, but there was no sound from that direction.
Locke listened, straining to hear over the thudding of his pulse. There was a whisper of bare skin against the floor, and a flutter of cloth. He sat up, left hand outstretched, only to find another warm set of fingers entwined around his, and a palm in the middle of his chest pushing him back down.
“Shhhh,” said Sabetha, sliding onto the cot.
“Wha … where is everyone?”
“Gone for the moment,” she whispered into his ear. Her breath was warm against his cheek. “We don’t have much time, but we do have some.”
She took his hands and guided them to the smooth, taut muscles of her stomach. Then she slid them upwards until he was cupping her breasts—she’d come into the room without a tunic.
One thing the bodies of sixteen-year-old boys (and that was more or less what Locke was) don’t do is respond mildly to provocation. In an instant he was achingly hard against the thin fabric of his breeches, and he exhaled in mingled shock and delight. Sabetha brushed aside his blanket and slid her left hand down between his legs. Locke arched his back and uttered a noise that was far from dignified. Luckily, Sabetha giggled, seeming to find it endearing.
“Mmmm,” she whispered. “I do feel appreciated.” She pressed down firmly but gently and began to squeeze him to the rhythm of their breathing, which was growing steadily louder. At the same time, she slid his other hand down from her breast, down her stomach, down to her legs. She was wearing a linen breechclout, the sort that could be undone with just a tug in the right place. She pressed his hand between her thighs, against the intriguing heat just behind the fabric. He caressed her there, and for a few incredible moments they were completely caught up in this half-sharing, half-duel, their responses to one another becoming less controlled with every ragged breath, and it was delicious suspense to wonder who would snap first.
“You’re driving me mad,” he whispered. The heat from her skin was so intense he imagined he could see it as a ghost-image in the dark. She leaned forward, and her breath tickled his cheeks again; he drew in the scents of her hair and sweat and perfume and laughed with pleasure.
“Why are we still wearing clothes?” she said, and they rolled apart to amend the situation, fumbling, struggling, giggling. Only now the soft heat of her skin was fading, and the gray shadows of the room loomed more deeply around them, and then Locke was kicking out, spasming in a full-body reflex as she slipped from his grasp like a breath of wind.
That cruelest of landlords, cold morning reality, finished evicting the warm fantasy that had briefly taken up residence in his skull. Muttering and swearing, Locke fought against his tangled blanket, felt his cot tipping away from the wall, and failed in every particular to brace himself for his meeting with the floor. There are three distinct points of impact no romantically excited teenage boy ever hopes to slam against a hard surface. Locke managed to land on all three.
His outflung right hand failed to do anything useful, but it did snatch the opaque cover from his cot-side alchemical globe, bathing the cell in soft golden light for him to gasp and writhe by. A carelessly stacked pile of books toppled loudly to the floor, then took several similar piles with it in a fratricidal cascade.
“Gods below,” muttered Jean, rolling away from the light. Jean was definitely in his proper place, and their cell was once again the cluttered mess of daily life rather than the dark private stage of Locke’s dream.
“Arrrrrrrrrrrgh,” said Locke. It didn’t help much, so he tried again. “Arrrrrrrrrrr—”
“You know,” said Jean, yawning irritably, “you should burn some offerings in thanks for the fact that you don’t actually talk in your sleep.”
“… rrrrrrgh. What the hell do you mean?”
“Sabetha’s got really sharp ears.”
“Nnngh.”
“I mean, it’s pretty gods-damned obvious you’re not dreaming about calligraphy over there.”
There was a loud knock on the wall just outside their cell, and then the curtain was swept aside to reveal Calo Sanza, long hair hanging in his eyes, working his way into a pair of breeches.
“Good morning, sunshines! What’s with all the noise?”
“Someone took a tumble,” muttered Jean.
“What’s so hard about sleeping on a cot like a normal person, ya fuckin’ spastic dog?”
“Kiss my ass, Sanza,” Locke gasped.
“Heyyyyyyyyy, EVE
RYBODY!” Calo pounded on the wall as he shouted. “I know we’ve got half an hour yet to sleep, but Locke thinks we should all be up right now! Find your happy faces, Gentlefucker Bastards, it’s a bright new day and we get to start it EARLY!”
“Calo, what the hell is wrong with you?” hollered Sabetha, somewhere down the hall.
Locke put his forehead against the floor and moaned. It was the height of the endless steaming summer of the seventy-eighth Year of Preva, Lady of the Red Madness, and everything was absolutely screwed up to hell.
2
SABETHA DARTED in, parried Locke’s attempt at a guard, and smacked the outside of his left knee with her chestnut wood baton.
“Ow,” he said, hopping up and down while the sting faded. Locke wiped his forehead, lined up again in the duelist’s stance, and touched the tip of his baton to Sabetha’s. They were using the sanctuary of the Temple of Perelandro as a practice room, under Jean’s watchful eye.
“High diamond, low square,” said Jean. “Go!”
This was more an exercise in speed and precision than actual fighting technique. They slammed their batons together in the patterns demanded by Jean, and after the final contact they were free to swipe at one another, scoring touches against arms or legs.
Clack! Clack! Clack! The sound of their batons echoed across the stone-walled chamber.
Clack! Clack! Clack!
Clack! Clack! Thump!
“Yeow,” said Locke, shaking his left wrist, where a fresh red welt was rising.
“You’re faster than this, Locke.” Sabetha returned to her starting position. “Something distracting you this morning?”
Sabetha wore a loose white tunic and black silk knee-breeches that left nothing about her lithely-muscled legs to the imagination. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair pulled tightly back with linen cord. If she’d heard anything specific about the disturbance he’d kicked off to start the day, at least she wasn’t saying much.
“More than one something?” she said. “Any of them attached to me?”
So much for the lukewarm comfort of uncertainty.
“You know I’m attached to you,” said Locke, trying to sound cheerful as they touched batons again.
“Or might like to be, hmmm?”
“Middle square,” yelled Jean, “middle square, middle diamond! Go!”
They wove their pattern of strikes and counterstrikes, rattling their batons off one another until the end of the sequence, when Sabetha flicked Locke’s weapon down and smacked a painful crease into his right biceps. Sabetha’s only commentary on this victory was to idly twirl her baton while Locke rubbed at his arm.
“Hold it,” said Jean. “We’ll try a new exercise. Locke, stand there with your hands at your sides. Sabetha, you just hit him until you get tired. Be sure to concentrate on his head so he won’t feel anything.”
“Very funny.” Locke lined up again. “I’m ready for another.”
He was nothing of the sort. At the end of the next pattern, Sabetha slapped him on the right biceps again. And again, following the pattern after that, with precision that was obviously deliberate.
“You know, most days you can at least manage to hit back,” she said. “Want to give it up as a bad job?”
“Of course not,” said Locke, trying to be subtle about wiping the nascent tears from the corners of his eyes. “Barely getting started.”
“Have it your way.” She lined up again, and Locke couldn’t miss the coldness of her poise. Ah, gods. When Sabetha felt she was being trifled with, she had a way of radiating the same calm, chilly regard that Locke imagined might pass from executioner to condemned victim. He knew all too well what it meant to be the object of that regard.
“High diamond,” said Jean warily, apprehending the change in Sabetha’s mood. “Middle square, low cross. Go.”
They flew through the patterns with furious speed, Sabetha setting the pace and Locke straining to match her. The instant the last stroke of the formal exercise was made, Locke flew into a guard position that would have deflected any blow aimed at his much-abused right biceps. Sabetha, however, was actually aiming for a point just above his heart, and the hotly stinging slap nearly knocked him over.
“Gods above,” said Jean, stepping between them. “You know the rules, Sabetha. No cuts at anything but arms or legs.”
“Are there rules in a tavern brawl or an alley fight?”
“This isn’t a damned alley fight. It’s just an exercise for building vigor!”
“Doesn’t seem to be working for one of us.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“What’s gotten into you, Jean? Are you going to stand in front of him for the rest of his life?”
“Hey, hey,” said Locke, stepping around Jean and attempting to hide a considerable amount of pain behind a disingenuous smile.
“All’s well, Jean.”
“All’s not well,” said Jean. “Someone is taking this far too seriously.”
“Stand aside, Jean,” said Sabetha. “If he wants to stick his hand in a fire, he can learn to pull it out himself.”
“He is right here, thank you very much, and he is fine,” said Locke. “It’s fine, Jean. Let’s have another pattern.”
“Sabetha needs to calm down.”
“Aren’t I calm?” said Sabetha. “Locke can have quarter anytime he asks for it.”
“I don’t choose to yield just yet,” said Locke, with what he hoped was a charming, devil-may-care sort of grin. Sabetha’s countenance only darkened in response. “However, if you’re concerned about me, you can back off to any degree you prefer.”
“Oh, no.” Sabetha was anything but calm. “No, no, no. I don’t withdraw. You yield! Deliberately. Or we keep going until you can’t stand up.”
“That might take a while,” said Locke. “Let’s see if you have the patience—”
“Damn it, when will you learn that refusing to admit you’ve lost isn’t the same as winning?”
“Sort of depends on how long one keeps refusing, doesn’t it?”
Sabetha scowled, an expression that cut Locke more deeply than any baton-lash. Staring fixedly at him, she took her baton in both hands, snapped it over her knee, and bounced the pieces off the floor.
“Forgive me, gentlemen,” she said. “I seem to be unable to conform to the intended spirit of this exercise.”
She turned and left. When she’d vanished into the rear hall of the temple, Locke let out a dejected sigh.
“Gods,” he said. “What the hell is going on between us? What happened, just now?”
“She has a cruel streak, that one,” said Jean.
“No more than any of us!” said Locke, more hotly than he might have intended. “Well, we’ve got some … philosophical differences, to be sure.”
“She’s a perfectionist.” Jean picked up the broken halves of Sabetha’s baton. “And you’re a real idiot from time to time.”
“What did I do, besides fail to be a master baton duelist?” Locke massaged some of the tender reminders Sabetha had left him of her superior technique. “I didn’t train with Don Maranzalla.”
“Neither did she.”
“Well, come on, how does that make me an idiot?”
“You’re no Sanza,” said Jean, “but you can certainly be one sharp stab in the ass. Look, you’d have stood here and let her slap you into paste just for the sake of being in the same room with her. I know it. You know it. She knows it.”
“Well, uh—”
“It’s not endearing, Locke. You don’t court a girl by inviting her to abuse you from sunrise to sunset.”
“Really? That sounds an awful lot like courtship in every story I’ve ever read—”
“I mean literally abused, as in getting pounded into bird shit with a wooden stick. It’s not charming or impressive. It just makes you look silly.”
“Well, she doesn’t like it when I beat her at anything. She’s certainly not going to respect me if I give up! So just
what the hell can I do?”
“No idea. Maybe I see some things clearer than you because I’m not bloody infatuated, but what to actually do with the pair of you, gods know.”
“You’re a deep well of reassurance.”
“On the bright side,” said Jean, “I’m sure you’re higher in her esteem right now than the Sanzas.”
“Sweet gods, that’s sickly praise.” Locke leaned against a wall and stretched. “Speaking of Sanzas, did you see Chains’ face when we woke him up this morning?”
“I wish I hadn’t. He’s going to break those two over his knee like Sabetha’s stick.”
“Where do you think he stomped off to?”
“No idea. I’ve never seen him leave angry before the sun was even up.”
“What in all the hells is going on with us?” said Locke. “This whole summer has been one long exercise in getting everything wrong.”
“Chains muttered to me a few nights ago,” said Jean, fiddling with the broken baton. “Something about awkward years. Said he might have to do something about us being all pent up together.”
“Hope that doesn’t mean more apprenticeships. I’m really not in the mood to go learn another temple’s rituals and then pretend to kill myself.”
“No idea what it means, but—”
“Hey, you two!” Galdo Sanza appeared out of the rear corridor, the spitting image of Calo, save for the fact that his skull was shaven clean of every last speck of hair. “Tubby and the training dummy! Chains is back, wants us in the kitchen with a quickness. And what’d you do to Sabetha this time?”
“I exist,” said Locke. “Some days that’s enough.”
“You should make some friends at the Guilded Lilies, mate,” said Galdo. “Why fall on your face trying to tame a horse when you can have a dozen that are already saddled?”