by Scott Lynch
“Certain. Selendri?”
“The name means nothing,” she said.
“Who is he supposed to be, then?” Requin folded his gloved hands tightly together.
“He’s…” What would do it? What would sensibly draw us away from this place if we’re here to break the vault? Oh…Crooked Warden, of course! “…a lockbreaker. Stragos’ spies have a file on him. Supposedly, he’s the best, or he was, back in his day. An artist with a pick, some sort of mechanical prodigy. Jerome and I are expected to entice him out of retirement so he can apply himself to the problem of your vault.”
“What’s a man like that doing in Port Prodigal?”
“Hiding, I imagine.” Locke felt the corners of his mouth drawing upward and suppressed an old familiar glee; once a Big Lie was let out in the world, it seemed to grow on its own and needed little tending or worry to bend to the situation. “Stragos says that the Artificers have tried to kill him several times. He’s their antithesis. If he’s real, he’s the gods-damned anti-artificer.”
“Strange that I’ve never heard of him,” said Requin, “or been asked to find and remove him.”
“If you were the Artificers,” said Locke, “would you want to spread knowledge of his capabilities to someone in a position to make the best possible use of them?”
“Hmmm.”
“Hell.” Locke scratched his chin and feigned distracted consideration. “Maybe someone did ask you to find him and remove him. Just not by that name, and not with that description of his skills, you know?”
“But why, of all his agents, would you and Jerome—”
“Who else is guaranteed to come back or die trying?”
“The alleged poison. Ah.”
“We have two months, maybe less.” Locke sighed. “Stragos warned us not to dally. We’re not back by then, we get to find out how skilled his personal alchemist is.”
“The service of the archon seems a complicated life, Leocanto.”
“Fucking tell me about it. I liked him much better when he was just our unknown paymaster.” Locke rolled his shoulders and felt some of his sore back muscles protest. “We leave inside the month. That’s what the day-sailing is about. We’ll slip in with the crew of an independent trader once we’ve had some training, so we don’t stand out as the land-huggers we are. No more late nights gaming for us, until we get back.”
“You expect to succeed?”
“No, but one way or another, I’m damn well coming back. Maybe Jerome can even have an ‘accident’ on the voyage. Anyhow, we’ll be storing our wardrobes at the Villa Candessa. And we’ll be leaving every centira we currently have on your ledgers right where they are. My money and Jerome’s. Hostage against my return, as it were.”
“And if you do return,” said Selendri, “you might bring back a man who can genuinely aid the archon’s design.”
“If he’s there,” said Locke, “I’ll be bringing him straight back here first. I expect you’ll want to have a frank discussion with him about the health benefits of accepting a counteroffer.”
“Assuredly,” said Requin.
“This Callas,” said Locke, letting excitement rise in his voice, “he could be our key to getting Stragos over the coals. He could be an even better turncoat than I am.”
“Why, Master Kosta,” said Selendri, “I doubt that anyone could be a more enthusiastic turncoat than you.”
“You know damn well what I’m enthusiastic about,” said Locke. “But that’s that. Stragos hasn’t told us anything else at the moment. I just wanted to get rid of those damn chairs and let you know we’d be leaving for a while. I assure you, I’ll be back. If it’s in my power at all, I’ll be back.”
“Such assurances,” mused Requin. “Such earnest assurances.”
“If I wanted to cut and run,” said Locke, “I would have done it already. Why come tell you all this first?”
“Obvious,” said Requin, smiling gently. “If this is a ploy, it could buy you a two-month head start during which I wouldn’t think to go looking for you.”
“Ah. An excellent point,” said Locke. “Except that I’d expect to start dying horribly around then, head start or no.”
“So you claim.”
“Look. I’m deceiving the archon of Tal Verrar on your behalf. I’m deceiving Jerome gods-damned de Ferra. I need allies if I’m going to get out of this shit. I don’t care if you two trust me; I have to trust you. I am showing you my hand. No bluff. Now, again, you tell me how we proceed.”
Requin casually riffled the edges of the parchment pile on his desk, then matched gazes with Locke. “I expect to hear the archon’s further plans for you immediately. No delays. Make me wonder where you are again, and I’ll have you fetched. With finality.”
“Understood.” Locke made a show of swallowing and wringing his hands together. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing him again before we leave. I’ll be here the night after any meeting, no later.”
“Good.” Requin pointed in the direction of the climbing closet. “Leave. Find this Calo Callas, if he exists, and bring him to me. But I don’t want dear Jerome slipping over a rail while you’re out at sea. Understand? Until Stragos is in hand, that privilege is mine to deny.”
“I…”
“No ‘accidents’ for Master de Ferra. You satisfy that grudge on my sufferance. That’s the bargain.”
“If you put it that way, understood, of course.”
“Stragos has his promised antidote.” Requin took up a quill and returned his attention to his parchments. “I want my own assurance of your enthusiastic return to my fair city. You want to slaughter your calf, you tend him for a few months first. Tend him very well.”
“Of…of course.”
“Selendri will show you out.”
5
“HONESTLY, IT could have gone much worse,” said Jean as he and Locke pulled at their oars the next morning. They were out in the main harbor, clipping over the gentle swells near the Merchants’ Crescent. The sun had not yet reached its noon height, but the day was already hotter than its predecessor. The two thieves were sweat-drenched.
“Sudden miserable death is indeed much worse,” said Locke. He stifled a groan; today, the exercise was troubling not only his back and shoulder but the old wounds that covered a substantial portion of his left arm. “But I think that’s the last dregs of Requin’s patience. Any more strangeness or complication…Well, hopefully, this is as odd as Stragos’ plans are going to get.”
“Can’t move the boat by flapping your mouths,” yelled Caldris.
“Unless you want to chain us to these oars and beat a drum,” said Locke, “we converse as we please. And unless you wish us to drop dead, you should consider an early lunch.”
“Oh dear! Does the splendid young gentleman not find the working life agreeable?” Caldris was sitting in the bow with his legs stretched out toward the mast. On his stomach, the kitten was curled into a dark ball of sleeping contentment. “The first mate here wants me to remind you that where we’re going, the sea don’t wait on your pleasure. You might be up twenty hours straight. You might be up forty. You might be on deck. You might be working a pump. Time comes to do what’s necessary, you’ll fucking well do it, and you’ll do it until you drop. So we’re gonna row, every day, until your expectations are right where they should be. And today we’re gonna take a late lunch, not an early one. Hard a-larboard!”
6
“EXCELLENT WORK, Master Kosta. Fascinating and bloody unorthodox. By your reckoning, we’re somewhere near the latitudes of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows. A touch on the warm side for Vintila, don’t you think?”
Locke slipped the backstaff, a four-foot pole with an awkward arrangement of vanes and calipers on the forward end, off his shoulder and sighed.
“Can you not see the sun-shadow on your horizon vane?”
“Yes, but—”
“I admit, the device ain’t exactly as precise as an arrow-shot. But even a land-sucker should b
e able to do better than that. Do it again, just like I showed you. Horizon and sun-shadow. And be grateful you’re using a Verrari Quadrant; the old cross-staffs made you look right at the sun instead of away from it.”
“Beg pardon,” said Jean, “but I’d always heard this device referred to as a Camorri Quadrant.”
“Bullshit,” said Caldris. “This here’s a Verrari Quadrant. Verrari invented it, twenty years back.”
“That claim,” said Locke, “must take some of the sting out of getting the shit walloped out of you in the Thousand-Day War, eh?”
“You sweet on Camorri, Kosta?” Caldris put a hand on the backstaff. Locke realized with a start that his anger wasn’t bantering. “I thought you was Talishani. You got a reason to fuckin’ speak up for Camorr?”
“No, I was just—”
“Just what, now?”
“Forgive me.” Locke realized his mistake. “I didn’t think. It’s not just history to you, is it?”
“All thousand days and then some,” said Caldris. “I was there all the fuckin’ way.”
“My apologies. I suppose you lost friends.”
“You damn well suppose right.” Caldris snorted. “Lost a ship from under me. Lucky not to be devilfish food. Bad times.” He removed his hand from Locke’s backstaff and composed himself. “I know you didn’t mean anything, Kosta. I’m…sorry, too. Those of us who bled in that fight didn’t exactly think we was losing it when the Priori gave in. Partly why we had such hopes for the first archon.”
“Leocanto and I have no reason to love Camorr,” said Jean.
“Good.” Caldris clapped Locke on the back and seemed to relax. “Good. Keep it that way, eh? Now! We’re lost at sea, Master Kosta! Find our latitude!”
It was the fourth day of their training with the Verrari sailing master; after their customary morning of torture at the oars, Caldris had led them out to the seaward side of the Silver Marina. Perhaps five hundred yards out from the glass island, still well within the sweep of calmed sea provided by the city’s encircling reefs, there was a flat-topped stone platform in forty or fifty feet of translucent blue-green water. Caldris had called it the Lubber’s Castle; it was a training platform for would-be Verrari naval and merchant sailors.
Their dinghy was lashed to the side of the platform, which was perhaps thirty feet on a side. Spread across the stones at their feet were an array of navigational devices: backstaffs, cross-staffs, hourglasses, charts and compasses, a Determiner’s Box, and a set of unfathomable peg-boards that Caldris claimed were used for tracking course changes. The kitten was sleeping on an astrolabe, covering up the symbols etched into its brass surface.
“Friend Jerome was tolerably good at this,” said Caldris. “But he’s not to be the captain; you are.”
“And I thought you were to handle all the important tasks, on pain of gruesome death, as you’ve only mentioned ten score times.”
“I am. You’re mad if you think that’s changed. But I need you to understand just enough not to gawk with your thumb up your ass when I say this or do that. Just know which end to hold, and be able to read a latitude that doesn’t put us off by half the fucking world.”
“Sun-shadow and horizon,” muttered Locke.
“Indeed. Later on tonight, we’ll use the old-style staff for the only thing it’s still good for—taking your reading from the stars.”
“But it’s just past noon!”
“Right,” said Caldris. “We’re in for a good long haul today. There’s books and charts and maths to do, and more sailing and rowing, then more books and charts. Late to bed, you’ll be. Better get comfortable with this here Lubber’s Castle.” Caldris spat on the stones. “Now fetch that fucking latitude!”
7
“WHAT’S IT mean if we broach?” said Jean.
It was late in the evening of their ninth day with Caldris, and Jean was soaking in a huge brass tub. Despite the warmth of their enclosed chambers at the Villa Candessa, he’d demanded hot water, and it was still sending up wisps of curling steam after three-quarters of an hour. On a little table beside the tub was an open bottle of Austershalin brandy (the 554, the cheapest readily available) and both of the Wicked Sisters.
The shutters and curtains of the suite’s windows were all drawn tight, the door was bolted, and Locke had wedged a chair up beneath its handle. That might provide a few seconds’ additional warning if someone tried to enter by force. Locke lay on his bed, letting two glasses of brandy loosen the knots in his muscles. His knives were set out on the nightstand, not three feet from his hands.
“Ah, gods,” he said. “I know this. It’s…something…bad?”
“To meet strong winds and seas abeam,” said Jean, “taking them on the side, rather than cutting through them with the bow.”
“And that’s bad.”
“Powerful bad.” Jean was paging through a tattered copy of Indrovo Lencallis’ Wise Mariner’s Practical Lexicon, with Numerous Enlightening Examples from Honest History. “Come on, you’re the captain of the ship. I’m just your skull-cracker.”
“I know. Give me another.” Locke’s own copy of the book was currently resting underneath his knives and his glass of brandy.
“Hmmm.” Jean flipped pages. “Caldris says to put us on a beam reach. What the hell’s he talking about?”
“Wind coming in perpendicular to the keel,” muttered Locke. “Hitting us straight on the side.”
“And now he wants a broad reach.”
“Right.” Locke paused to sip his brandy. “Wind neither blowing right up our ass nor straight on the side. Coming from one of the rear quarters, at forty-five degrees or so to the keel.”
“Good enough.” Jean flipped pages again. “Box the compass. What’s the sixth point?”
“Hard east. Gods, this is just like dinner with Chains back home.”
“Right on both counts. South a point.”
“Um, east by south.”
“Right. South another point.”
“Southeast east?”
“And another point.”
“Ah, gods.” Locke grabbed his glass and downed the rest of his brandy in one gulp. “Southeast by go-fuck-yourself. That’s enough for tonight.”
“But—”
“I am the captain of the bloody ship,” said Locke, rolling over onto his stomach. “My orders are to drink your brandy and go to bed.” He reached out, pulled a pillow completely over his head, and was fast asleep in moments. Even in his dreams he was tying knots, bracing sails, and finding latitudes.
8
“I WAS not aware,” said Locke the next morning, “that I had joined your navy. I thought the whole idea was to run away from it.”
“A means to an end, Master Kosta.”
The archon had been waiting for them in their private bay within the Sword Marina. One of his personal boats (Locke remembered it from the glass caverns beneath the Mon Magisteria) was tied up behind their dinghy. Merrain and half a dozen Eyes had been in attendance. Now Merrain was helping Locke try on the uniform of a Verrari naval officer.
The tunic and breeches were the same dark blue as the doublets of the Eyes. The coat, however, was brownish red, with stiff black leather sewn along the forearms in approximation of bracers. The single neck-cloth was dark blue, and gleaming brass devices in the shape of roses over crossed swords were pinned to his upper arms just below the shoulders.
“I don’t have many fair-haired officers in my service,” said Stragos, “but the uniform is a good fit. I’ll have another made by the end of the week.” Stragos reached out and adjusted some of Locke’s details—tightening his neck-cloth, shifting the hang of the empty scabbard at his belt. “After that, you’ll wear it for a few hours each day. Get used to it. One of my Eyes will instruct you in how to carry yourself, and the courtesies and salutes we use.”
“I still don’t understand why—”
“I know.” Stragos turned to Caldris, who, in his master’s presence, had lost his custom
ary vulgar impishness. “How are they doing in their training, sailing master?”
“The Protector is already well aware,” said Caldris slowly, “of my general opinion concerning this here mission.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“They are…less hopeless than they were, Protector. Somewhat less hopeless.”
“That will do, then. You still have nearly three weeks to mold them. I daresay they already look better acquainted with hard work under the sun.”
“Where’s our ship, Stragos?” asked Locke.
“Waiting.”
“And where’s our crew?”
“In hand.”
“And why the hell am I wearing this uniform?”
“Because it pleases me to make you a captain in my navy. That’s what’s meant by the twin roses-over-swords. You’ll be a captain for one night only. Learn to look comfortable in the uniform. Then learn to be patient waiting for your orders.”
Locke scowled, then placed his right hand on his scabbard and crossed his left arm, with a clenched fist, across his chest. He bowed from the waist at the precise angle he’d seen Stragos’ Eyes use on several occasions. “Gods defend the archon of Tal Verrar.”
“Very good,” said Stragos. “But you’re an officer, not a common soldier or sailor. You bow at a shallower angle.”
He turned and walked toward his boat. The Eyes formed ranks and marched after him, and Merrain began pulling the uniform hurriedly off Locke.
“I return you gentlemen to Caldris’ care,” said the archon as he stepped down into the boat. “Use your days well.”
“And just when in the name of the gods do we get to learn how this all fits together?”
“All in good time, Kosta.”
9
TWO MORNINGS later, when the gates swung wide to admit Merrain’s boat to the private bay in the Sword Marina, Locke and Jean were surprised to discover that their dinghy had been joined during the night by an actual ship.
A soft warm rain was falling, not a proper squall from the Sea of Brass but an annoyance blowing in from the mainland. Caldris waited on the stone plaza in a light oilcloak, with rivulets of water streaming from his unprotected hair and beard. He grinned when the boat delivered Locke and Jean, lightly clad and bootless.