“I’m not sure that’d be wise. Tal Verrar’s got no twit-riddled aristocracy for us to fool around with. The archon’s a military tyrant on a long leash—he can bend the laws as he sees fit, so I’d rather not yank his breechclout. The Priori council is all merchants from common stock, and they’ll be damned hard to cheat. There’s plenty of likely subjects for small-time games, but if we want a big game, Requin’s the best one to hit. He’s got what we want, right there for the taking.”
“Yet his vault…”
“Let me tell you,” said Locke, “exactly what we’re going to do about his vault.”
Locke spoke for a few minutes while he put his deck of cards together, outlining the barest details of his scheme. Jean’s eyebrows strained upward, attempting to take to the air above his head.
“…so that’s that. Now what do you say, Jean?”
“I’ll be damned. That might just work. If…”
“If?”
“Are you sure you remember how to work a climbing harness? I’m a bit rusty myself.”
“We’ll have quite a while to practice, won’t we?”
“Hopefully. Hmmm. And we’ll need a carpenter. One outside Tal Verrar itself, obviously.”
“We can go looking into that as well, once we’ve got a bit of coin back in our pockets.”
Jean sighed, and all the banter went out of him like wine from a punctured skin. “I suppose…that just leaves…damn.”
“What?”
“I, ah…well, hell. Are you going to break down on me again? Are you going to stay reliable?”
“Stay reliable? Jean, you can…Damn it, look for yourself! What have I been doing? Exercising, planning—and apologizing all the damn time! I’m sorry, Jean, I really am. Vel Virazzo was a bad time. I miss Calo, Galdo, and Bug.”
“As do I, but…”
“I know. I let my sorrow get the best of me. It was damned selfish, and I know you must ache like I do. I said some stupid things. But I thought I’d been forgiven…. Did I misunderstand?” Locke’s voice hardened. “Shall I now understand that forgiveness is something prone to going in and out like the tide?”
“Now that’s hardly fair. Just—”
“Just what? Am I special, Jean? Am I our only liability? When have I ever doubted your skills? When have I ever treated you like a child? You’re not my fucking mother, and you’re certainly not Chains. We can’t work as partners if you’re going to sit in judgment of me like this.”
The two of them stared at each other, each trying to muster an attitude of cold indignation, and each failing. The mood within the little cabin turned morose, and Jean turned to stare sullenly out the window for a few moments while Locke dejectedly shuffled his cards. He attempted another one-handed cut, and neither he nor Jean seemed surprised when a little blizzard of paper chits settled into the seat beside Jean.
“I’m sorry,” Locke said as his cards fluttered down. “That was another shitty thing to say. Gods, when did we discover how easy it is to be cruel to one another?”
“You’re right,” Jean said softly. “I’m not Chains and I’m certainly not your mother. I shouldn’t push you.”
“No, you should. You pushed me off that galleon and you pushed me out of Vel Virazzo. You were right. I behaved terribly, and I can understand if you’re still…nervous about me. I was so wrapped up in what I’d lost, I forgot what I still had. I’m glad you still worry enough about me to kick my ass when I need it.”
“I, ah, look—I apologize as well. I just—”
“Damn it, don’t interrupt me when I’m feeling virtuously self-critical. I’m ashamed of how I behaved in Vel Virazzo. It was a slight to everything we’ve been through together. I promise to do better. Does that put you at ease?”
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Jean began to pick up the scattered cards, and the ghost of a smile reappeared on his face. Locke settled back in his seat and rubbed his eyes.
“Gods. We need a target, Jean. We need a game. We need someone to go to work on, as a team. Don’t you see? It’s not just about what we can charm out of Requin. I want it to be us against the world, lively and dangerous, just like it used to be. Where there’s no room for this sort of second-guessing, you know?”
“Because we’re constantly inches from a horrible bloody death, you mean.”
“Right. The good times.”
“This plan might take a year,” said Jean, slowly. “Maybe two.”
“For a game this interesting, I’m willing to spend a year or two. You have any other pressing engagements?”
Jean shook his head, passed the collected cards back to Locke, and went back to his sheaf of notes, a deeply thoughtful expression on his face. Locke slowly traced the outline of the deck of cards with the fingers of his left hand, which felt slightly less useful than a crab claw. He could feel the still-fresh scars itching beneath his cotton tunic—scars so extensive it looked as though most of his left side had been sewn together from rag parts. Gods damn it, he was ready to be healed now. He was ready to have his old careless agility back. He imagined that he felt like a man of twice his years.
He tried another one-handed shuffle, and the deck fell apart in his hands. At least it hadn’t shot apart in all directions. Was that improvement?
He and Jean were silent for several minutes.
Eventually, the carriage rattled around a final small hill and suddenly Locke was looking across a green checkerboard land, sloping downward to sea-cliffs perhaps five or six miles distant. Specks of gray and white and black dotted the landscape, thickening toward the horizon, where the landside of Tal Verrar crowded against the cliff edges. The coastal section of the city seemed pressed down beneath the rain; great silvery curtains were sweeping past behind it, blotting out the islands of Tal Verrar proper. Lightning crackled blue and white in the distance, and soft peals of thunder rolled toward them across the fields.
“We’re here,” said Locke.
“Landside,” said Jean without looking up. “Might as well find an inn when we get there; we’ll be hard pressed to find a boat to the islands in weather like this.”
“Who shall we be, when we get there?”
Jean looked up and chewed his lip before taking the bait of their old game. “Let’s be something other than Camorri for a while. Camorr’s brought us nothing good of late.”
“Talishani?”
“Seems good to me.” Jean adjusted his voice slightly, adopting the faint but characteristic accent of the city of Talisham. “Anonymous Unknown of Talisham, and his associate Unknown Anonymous, also of Talisham.”
“What names did we leave on the books at Meraggio’s?”
“Well, Lukas Fehrwight and Evante Eccari are right out. Even if those accounts haven’t been confiscated by the state, they’ll be watched. You trust the Spider not to get a burr up her ass if she finds out we’re active in Tal Verrar?”
“No,” said Locke. “I seem to recall…Jerome de Ferra, Leocanto Kosta, and Milo Voralin.”
“I opened the Milo Voralin account myself. He’s supposed to be Vadran. I think we might leave him in reserve.”
“And that’s what we have left? Three useful accounts?”
“Sadly, yes. But it’s more than most thieves get. I’ll be Jerome.”
“I suppose I’ll be Leocanto, then. What are we doing in Tal Verrar, Jerome?”
“We’re…hired men for a Lashani countess. She’s thinking of buying a summer home in Tal Verrar and we’re there to hunt one down for her.”
“Hmmm. That might be good for a few months, but after we’ve looked at all the available properties, then what? And there’s lots of actual work involved, if we don’t want everyone to know right away that we’re lying through our teeth. What if we call ourselves…merchant speculators?”
“Merchant speculators. That’s good. It doesn’t have to mean a damn thing.”
“Exactly. If we spend all our time lounging around the chance houses cutting cards, well, we’re just passing ti
me waiting for market conditions to ripen.”
“Or we’re so good at our jobs we hardly need to work at all.”
“Our lines write themselves. How did we meet, and how long have we been together?”
“We met five years ago.” Jean scratched his beard. “On a sea voyage. We became business partners out of sheer boredom. Since then we’ve been inseparable.”
“Except that my plan calls for me to be plotting your death.”
“Yes, but I don’t know that, do I? Boon companion! I suspect nothing.”
“Chump! I can hardly wait to see you get yours.”
“And the loot? Assuming we do manage to work our way into Requin’s confidence, and we do manage to call the dance properly, and we do manage to get out of his city with everything intact…we haven’t really talked about what comes after that.”
“We’ll be old thieves, Jean.” Locke squinted and tried to pick out details of the rain-swept landscape as the carriage made its final turn down the long, straight road into Tal Verrar. “Old thieves of seven-and-twenty, or perhaps eight-and-twenty, when we finish this. I don’t know. How would you feel about becoming a viscount?”
“Lashain,” Jean mused. “Buy a pair of titles, you mean? Settle there for good?”
“Not sure if I’d go that far. But last I heard, poor titles were running about ten thousand solari, and better ones fifteen to twenty. It’d give us a home and some clout. We could do whatever we wanted from there. Plot more games. Grow old in comfort.”
“Retirement?”
“We can’t run around false-facing forever, Jean. I think we both realize that. Sooner or later we’ll need to favor another style of crime. Let’s tease a nice big score out of this place and then sink it into something useful. Build something again. Whatever comes after…well, we can charm that lock when we come to it.”
“Viscount Anonymous Unknown of Lashain—and his neighbor, Viscount Unknown Anonymous. There are worse fates, I suppose.”
“There certainly are—Jerome. So are you with me?”
“Of course, Leocanto. You know that. Maybe another two years of honest thieving will leave me ready to retire. I could get back into silks and shipping, like mother and father—perhaps look up some of their old contacts, if I can remember them right.”
“I think Tal Verrar will be good for us,” said Locke. “It’s a pristine city. We’ve never worked out of it and it’s never seen our like. Nobody knows us; nobody expects us. We’ll have total freedom of movement.”
The carriage clattered along under the rain, jostling against patches where the weathered stones of the Therin Throne road had been washed clean of their protective layers of dirt. Lightning lit the sky in the distance, but the gray veil swirled thick between land and sea, and the great mass of Tal Verrar was hidden from their eyes as they rode down into it for the first time.
“You’re almost certainly right, Locke. I think we do need a game.” Jean set his notes on his lap and cracked his knuckles. “Gods, but it’ll be good to be out and around. It’ll be good to be the predators again.”
CHAPTER THREE
WARM HOSPITALITY
1
THE CHAMBER WAS a rough brick cube about eight feet on a side. It was completely dark, and an arid sauna heat was radiating from the walls, which were too hot to touch for more than a few seconds. Locke and Jean had been sweltering inside it for only the gods knew how long—probably hours.
“Agh.” Locke’s voice was cracked. He and Jean were seated back to back in the blackness, leaning against each other for support, with their folded coats beneath them. Locke beat his heels against the stones of the floor, not for the first time.
“Gods damn it!” Locke yelled. “Let us out. You’ve made your point!”
“What point,” rasped Jean, “could that possibly be?”
“I don’t know.” Locke coughed. “I don’t care. Whatever it is, they’ve damn well made it, don’t you think?”
2
THE REMOVAL of their hoods had been a relief, for about two heartbeats.
First had come an interminable interval spent stumbling around in stifling darkness, pulled and prodded along by captors who seemed to be in some haste. Next, there was indeed a boat ride; Locke could smell the warm salt mists rising off the city’s harbor, while the deck swayed gently beneath him and oars creaked rhythmically in their locks.
Eventually, that too came to an end; the boat rocked as someone rose and moved about. The oars were drawn in and an unfamiliar voice called for poles. A few moments later, the boat bumped against something, and strong hands again hoisted Locke to his feet. When he’d been helped from the boat to a firm stone surface, the hood was suddenly whisked off his head. He looked around, blinked at the sudden light, and said, “Oh, shit.”
At the heart of Tal Verrar, between the three crescent islands of the Great Guilds, lay the Castellana, fortified estate of the dukes of Tal Verrar centuries earlier. Now that the city had dispensed with titled nobility, the mansion-covered Castellana was home to a new breed of well-heeled gentry—the Priori councilors, the independently rich, and those guild-masters whose social positions required the most ostentatious displays of spending power.
At the very heart of the Castellana, guarded by a moat of empty air like a circular Elderglass canyon, was the Mon Magisteria, the palace of the archon—a towering human achievement springing upward from alien grandeur. An elegant stone weed growing in a glass garden.
Locke and Jean had been brought to a point directly beneath it. Locke guessed that they stood within the hollow space that separated the Mon Magisteria from the surrounding island; a million-faceted cavern of darkened Elderglass soared upward around them, and the open air of the upper island lay fifty or sixty feet above their heads. The channel that the boat had traveled through wound away to his left, and the sound of the lapping water was drowned out by a distant rumbling noise with no visible cause.
There was a wide stone landing at the base of the Mon Magisteria’s private island, with several boats tied up alongside it, including an enclosed ceremonial barge with silk awnings and gilded woodwork. Soft blue alchemical lamps in iron posts filled the space with light, and behind those posts a dozen soldiers stood at attention. Even if a quick glance upward hadn’t told Locke the identity of their captor, those soldiers would have revealed everything.
They wore dark blue doublets and breeches, with black leather bracers, vests, and boots all chased with raised designs in gleaming brass. Blue hoods were drawn up around the backs of their heads, and their faces were covered with featureless oval masks of polished bronze. Grids of tiny pinholes permitted them to see and breathe, but from a distance every impression of humanity was erased—the soldiers were faceless sculptures brought to life.
The Eyes of the Archon.
“Here you are then, Master Kosta, Master de Ferra.” The woman who’d waylaid Locke and Jean stepped up onto the landing between them and took them by the elbows, smiling as though they were out for a night on the town. “Is this not a more private place for a conversation?”
“What,” said Jean, “have we done to warrant our transport here?”
“I’m the wrong person to ask,” said the woman as she pushed them gently forward. “My job is to retrieve, and deliver.”
She released Locke and Jean just before the front rank of the archon’s soldiers. Their own disquieted expressions were reflected back at them in a dozen gleaming bronze masks.
“And sometimes,” said the woman as she returned to the boat, “when guests don’t come back out again, my job is to forget that I ever saw them at all.”
The Eyes of the Archon moved without apparent signal; Locke and Jean were enveloped and secured by several soldiers apiece. One of them spoke—another woman, her voice echoing ominously. “We will go up. You must not struggle and you must not speak.”
“Or what?” said Locke.
The Eye who’d spoken stepped over to Jean without hesitation and punc
hed him in the stomach. The big man exhaled in surprise and grimaced while the female Eye turned back to Locke. “If either of you causes any trouble, I’m instructed to punish the other one. Do I make myself clear?”
Locke ground his teeth together and nodded.
A wide set of switchback stairs led upward from the landing; the glass underfoot was rough as brick. Flight by flight the archon’s soldiers led Locke and Jean up past gleaming walls, until the moist night breeze of the city was on their faces once again.
They emerged within the perimeter defined by the glass chasm. A guardhouse stood just this side of the thirty-foot gap, beside a drawbridge currently hauled straight up into the air and set inside a heavy wood frame. Locke presumed that was the usual means of entrance to the archon’s domain.
The Mon Magisteria was a ducal fortress in the true Therin Throne style, easily fifteen stories high at its peak and three or four times as wide. Layer after layer of crenellated battlements rose up, formed from flat black stones that seemed to absorb the fountains of light thrown up by dozens of lanterns burning on the castle’s grounds. Columned aqueducts circled the walls and towers at every level, and decorative streams of water cascaded down from sculptures of dragons and sea monsters set at the fortress’ corners.
The Eyes of the Archon led Locke and Jean toward the front of the palace, down a wide path dusted with white gravel. There were lush green lawns on either side of the path, set behind decorative stone borders that made the lawns seem like islands. More blue-robed and black-armored guards in bronze masks stood unmoving along the path, holding up blackened-steel halberds with alchemical lights built into their wooden shafts.
Where most castles would have a front gate the Mon Magisteria had a rushing waterfall wider than the path on which they stood; this was the source of the noise Locke had heard echoing at the boat landing below. Multiple torrents of water crashed out of huge, dark apertures set in a line running straight up the castle wall. These joined and fell into a churning moat at the very base of the structure, a moat even wider than the glass-sided canyon that cut the castle grounds off from the rest of the Castellana.