“You convinced the nobles of Camorr to throw away a fortune on your schemes,” said Stragos without a hint of anger. “They love their money. Yet you shook it out of them like ripe fruit from a tree. You outwitted a Bondsmage. You outwitted Capa Barsavi to his very face. You evaded the trap that caught your Capa Barsavi and his entire court.”
“Only some of us,” whispered Locke. “Only some of us got away, asshole.”
“I need more than agents. I need provocateurs. You two fell into my hands at an ideal time. Your task, your mission, will be to raise hell on the Sea of Brass. I want ships sacked from here to Nicora. I want the Priori pounding on my door, pleading with me to take more gold, more ships, more responsibility. I want commerce south of Tal Verrar to set full sail and run for port. I want underwriters soiling their breeches. I know I might not get all that, but by the gods, I’ll take whatever you can give me. Raise me a pirate scare the likes of which we haven’t had in years.”
“You are cracked,” said Jean.
“We can rob nobles. We can do second-story work. We can slide down chimneys and slip locks and rob coaches and break vaults and do a fine spread of card tricks,” said Locke. “I could cut your balls off, if you had any, and replace them with marbles, and you wouldn’t notice for a week. But I hate to tell you that the one class of criminal we really haven’t associated with, ever, is fucking pirates!”
“We’re at a bit of a loss when it comes to the particulars of making their acquaintance,” added Jean.
“In this, as in so much, I’m well ahead of you,” said Stragos. “You should have no trouble making the acquaintance of the Ghostwind pirates, because you yourselves will become perfectly respectable pirates. Captain and first mate of a pirate sloop, as a matter of fact.”
3
“YOU ARE beyond mad,” said Locke after several moments of silent, furious thought. “Full-on barking madness is a state of rational bliss to which you may not aspire. Men living in gutters and drinking their own piss would shun your company. You are a prancing lunatic.”
“That’s not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from a man who genuinely wants his antidote.”
“Well, what a magnificent choice you’ve given us—death by slow poison or death by insane misadventure!”
“Come now,” said Stragos. “That’s also not the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from a man with your proven ability for slipping out of extremely complicated situations.”
“I’m getting a bit annoyed,” said Locke, “with those who praise our previous escapades as an excuse for forcing us into even riskier ones. Look, if you want us to run a job, give us one within our field of experience. Isn’t it broad enough for you? All we’re saying is that we don’t know the first bloody thing about wind, weather, ships, pirates, the Sea of Brass, the Ghostwind Isles, sails, ropes, er…weather, ships…”
“Our sole experience with ships,” said Jean, “consists of getting on, getting seasick, and getting off.”
“I’d thought of that,” said Stragos. “The captain of a criminal crew must have, above all other things, charisma. Leadership. A sense of decision. Rogues must be ruled. I believe you can do that, Lamora…by faking it, if necessary. That makes you the best possible choice in some respects. You can fake confidence when a sincere man might be inclined to panic. And your friend Jean can enforce your leadership; a good infighter is someone to be respected on a ship.”
“Sure, great,” said Locke. “I’m charming; Jean’s tough. That just leaves all the other things I named—”
“As for the nautical arts, I will provide you with an experienced sailing master. A man who can train you in the essentials and make the proper decisions for you once you’re at sea, all the while pretending the orders come from you. Don’t you see? All I’m doing is asking you to play a role; he’ll provide the knowledge to make that role convincing.”
“Sweet Venaportha,” said Locke. “You really intend for us to go out there, and you genuinely wish us to succeed?”
“Absolutely,” said Stragos.
“And the poison,” said Jean, “you’ll just put enough antidote in our hands to allow us to roam the Sea of Brass, as we will?”
“Hardly. You’ll need to call at Tal Verrar once every two months. My alchemist tells me that sixty-two to sixty-five days is really as far as you should push it.”
“Now, wait just a damn minute,” said Locke. “It’s not enough that we’ll be clueless sailors masquerading as hardened pirates, trusting another man to make us look competent. Or that we’re going to be out risking gods know what at sea, with our plans for Requin postponed. Now you expect us to be tied to Mother’s apron strings every two months?”
“It’s two or three weeks to the Ghostwinds, and the same time back. You’ll have ample time to do your business each trip, for however many months it takes. How closely you wish to shave your schedule is, of course, your own concern. Surely you see that it has to be this way.”
“No,” Locke laughed, “frankly, I don’t!”
“I’ll want progress reports. I may have new orders and information for you. You may have new requests or suggestions. It makes a great deal of sense to stay in regular contact.”
“And what if we chance across one of those patches of…damn, Jean, what are they called? No wind whatsoever?”
“Doldrums,” said Jean.
“Exactly,” said Locke. “Even we know that you can’t presume a constant speed with wind and sails; you get what the gods send you. We could be stuck on a flat ocean fifty miles from Tal Verrar, on day sixty-three, dying for no reason at all.”
“Remotely possible, but unlikely. I’m well aware that there’s a great element of risk in the task I’m handing you; the possibility of a vast return compels me to play the odds. Now…speak no more of this for the time being. Here’s what I’ve brought you out to see.”
There was a golden ripple on the black water ahead, and faint golden lines that seemed to sway in the air above it. As they drew closer, Locke saw that a wide, dark shape covered the artificial river completely, from one bank to the other. A building of some sort…and the golden lines appeared to be cracks in curtains that hung down to the water. The boat reached this barrier and pushed through with little trouble; Locke shoved heavy damp canvas away from his face, and as it fell aside the boat burst into broad daylight.
They were inside a walled and roofed garden, at least forty feet high, filled with willow, witchwood, olive, citrus, and amberthorn trees. Black, brown, and gray trunks stood in ranks beside one another, their vine-tangled branches reaching up in vast constellations of bright leaves that entwined above the river like a roof beneath the roof.
As for the roof itself, it was scintillant, sky blue and bright as noon, with wisps of white clouds drifting past half-visible between the branches. The sun burned painfully bright on Locke’s right as he turned around to stare straight ahead, and it sent rays of golden light down through the silhouetted leaves…though surely it was still the middle of the night outside.
“This is alchemy, or sorcery, or both,” said Jean.
“Some alchemy,” said Stragos in a soft, enthusiastic voice. “The ceiling is glass, the clouds are smoke, the sun is a burning vessel of alchemical oils and mirrors.”
“Bright enough to keep this forest alive under a roof? Damn,” said Locke.
“It may indeed be bright enough, Lamora,” said the archon, “but if you’ll look closely, you’ll see that nothing under this roof besides ourselves is alive.”
As Locke and Jean glanced around in disbelief, Stragos steered the boat up against one of the garden’s riverbanks. The waterway narrowed here to a mere ten feet, to allow room for the trees and vines and bushes on either side. Stragos reached out to grasp a trunk and halt the boat, and he pointed into the air as he spoke.
“A clockwork garden for my clockwork river. There’s not a real plant in here. It’s wood and clay and wire and silk; paint and dye and alchemy. All of it engin
eered to my design; it took the artificers and their assistants six years to construct it all. My little glen of mechanisms.”
Incredulously, Locke realized that the archon was telling the truth. Other than the movement of white smoke clouds far overhead, the place was unnaturally still, almost eerie. And the air in the enclosed garden was inert, smelling of stale water and canvas. It should have been bursting with forest scents, with the rich odors of dirt and flowering and decay.
“Do I still strike you as a man farting in an enclosed room, Lamora? In here, I do command the wind….”
Stragos raised his right arm high above his head, and a rustling noise filled the artificial garden. A current of air plucked at Locke’s scalp, and steadily rose until there was a firm breeze against his face. The leaves and branches around them swayed gently.
“And the rain,” cried Stragos. His voice echoed off the water and was lost in the depths of the suddenly lively forest. A moment later a faint warm mist began to descend, a ticklish haze of water that swirled in ghostly curves throughout the imaginary greenery and enveloped their boat. Then drops began to fall with a soft pitter-patter, rippling the surface of the clockwork river. Locke and Jean huddled beneath their coats as Stragos laughed.
“I can do more,” said Stragos. “Perhaps I can even call up a storm!” A stronger breath of air began to beat the rain and mist against them; the little river churned as a countercurrent surged from somewhere ahead of them. Little whitecaps burst beneath the boat as though the water were boiling; Stragos clung to his chosen tree trunk with both hands as the boat rocked nauseatingly. The raindrops grew heavier and harder; Locke had to shield his eyes to see. Clouds of thick dark mist boiled overhead, dimming the artificial sun. The forest had come to life, flailing at the misty air with branches and leaves as though the faux greenery was at war with unseen ghosts.
“But only after a fashion,” said Stragos, and without any apparent further signals from him the rain faded away. Gradually, the flailing of the forest died down to a soft rustling, and then to stillness; the surging currents of the river beneath them subsided, and in minutes the mechanical garden was restored to relative peace. Fingers of fading mist swirled around the trees, the sun peeked out from behind the thinning “clouds,” and the enclosure echoed with the not-unpleasant sound of water dripping from a thousand branches and fronds and trunks.
Locke shook himself and pushed his wet hair back out of his eyes. “It’s…it’s gods-damned singular, Archon. I’ll give it that. I’ve never even imagined anything like this.”
“A bottled garden with bottled weather,” mused Jean.
“Why?” Locke asked the question for both of them.
“As a reminder.” Stragos released his hold on the tree trunk and let the boat drift gently into the middle of the stream once again. “Of what the hands and minds of human beings can achieve. Of what this city, alone in all the world, is capable of producing. I told you my Mon Magisteria was a repository of artificial things. Think of them as the fruits of order…order I must secure and safeguard.”
“How the hell does interfering with Tal Verrar’s ocean commerce secure and safeguard order?”
“Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. There is something latent in this city that will flower, Lamora. Something that will bloom. Can you imagine the wonders the Therin Throne might have produced, given centuries of peace, had it not been shattered into all our warring, scrabbling city-states? Something is preparing to emerge out of all our misfortune at last, and it will be here. The alchemists and artificers of Tal Verrar are peerless, and the scholars of the Therin Collegium are just a few days away…. It must be here!”
“Maxilan, darling.” Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. “I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smolder. Come, take me now! Jean won’t mind; he’ll avert his eyes like a gentleman.”
“Mock me as you will, Lamora, but hear the words I speak. Comprehend, damn you. What you just witnessed,” said Stragos, “required sixty men and women to achieve. Spotters watching for my signals. Alchemists to tend the smoke-pots, and hidden crews to work the bellows and fans that produce the wind. There were several dozen merely pulling strings, as it were; the branches of my artificial trees are threaded with metal wire, like puppets, so that they may shake more convincingly. A small army of trained workers, straining to produce a five-minute spectacle for three men in a boat. And even that was not possible with the art and artifice of previous centuries.
“What more might we achieve, given time? What if thirty people could produce the same result? Or ten? Or one? What if better devices could give stronger winds, more driving rain, a harder current? What if our mechanisms of control grew so subtle and so powerful that they ceased to be a spectacle at all? What if we could harness them to change anything, control anything, even ourselves? Our bodies? Our souls? We cower in the ruins of the Eldren world, and cower in the shadow of the Magi of Karthain. But common men and women could equal their power. Given centuries, given the good grace of the gods, common men and women could eclipse their power.”
“And all of these grandiose notions,” said Jean, “somehow require the two of us to go out and pretend to be pirates on your behalf?”
“Tal Verrar will never be strong so long as its fate is vouchsafed by those who would squeeze gold from it like milk from a cow, then flee for the horizons at the first sign of danger. I need more power, and to speak plainly, I must seize or trick it out of my enemies, with the will of the people behind me. Your mission, if successful, would turn a key in the lock of a door that bars the way to greater things.” Stragos chuckled and spread his hands. “You are thieves. I am offering you a chance to help steal history itself.”
“Which is of little comfort,” said Locke, “compared to money in a countinghouse and a roof over one’s head.”
“You hate the magi of Karthain,” said Stragos flatly.
“I suppose I do,” said Locke.
“The last emperor of the Therin Throne tried to fight them with magic; sorcery against sorcery. He died for his failure. Karthain can never be conquered by the arts it commands; they have ensured that no power in our world will ever have sorcerers numerous or powerful enough to match them. They must be fought with this.” He set down his oar and spread his hands. “Machines. Artifice. Alchemy and engineering—the fruits of the mind.”
“All of this,” said Locke, “this whole ridiculous scheme…a more powerful Tal Verrar, conquering this corner of the world…all to hurt Karthain? I can’t say I find the idea unpleasant, but why? What did they do to you, to make you imagine this?”
“Do either of you know,” said Stragos, “of the ancient art of illusionism? Have you ever read about it in books of history?”
“A little,” said Locke. “Not very much.”
“Once upon a time the performance of illusions—imaginary magic, not real sorcery at all, just clever tricks—was widespread, popular, and lucrative. Commoners paid to see it on street corners; nobles of the Therin Throne paid to see it in their courts. But that culture is dead. The art no longer exists, except as trifles for cardsharps. The Bondsmagi haunt our city-states like wolves, ready to crush the slightest hint of competition. No sensible person would ever stand up in public and declare themselves to be capable of magic. Fear killed the entire tradition, hundreds of years ago.
“The Bondsmagi distort our world with their very presence. They rule us in many ways that have nothing to do with politics; the fact that we can hire them to do our bidding is immaterial. That little guild looms over everything we plan, everything we dream. Fear of the magi poisons our people to the very marrow of their ambitions. It prevents them from imagining a larger destiny…from the hope of reforging the empire we once had. I know that you consider what I’ve done to you unforgivable. But believe it or not, I admire you for standing up to the Bondsmagi. They turned you over to me as a means of punishment. Instead, I ask you to help me strike at them.”
“Grand abs
tracts,” said Jean. “You make it sound like this is some sort of incredible privilege for us, being pressed into service without our consent.”
“I don’t need an excuse to hate the Bondsmagi,” said Locke. “Not to hate them, nor to fight them. I’ve taunted them to their faces, more or less. Jean and I both. But you have to be some kind of madman, to think they’ll ever let you build anything openly powerful enough to knock them down.”
“I don’t expect to live to see it,” said Stragos. “I only expect to plant the seed. Look at the world around you, Lamora. Examine the clues they’ve given us. Alchemy is revered in every corner of our world, is it not? It lights our rooms, salves our injuries, preserves our food…enhances our cider.” He favored Locke and Jean with a self-satisfied smile. “Alchemy is a low-grade form of magic, but the Bondsmagi have never once tried to curtail or control it.”
“Because they just don’t give a damn,” said Locke.
“Wrong,” said Stragos. “Because it’s so necessary to so many things. It would be like trying to deny us the right to water, or fire. It would push us too far. No matter the cost, no matter the carnage, it would force us to fight back against them for the sake of our very existence. And they know it. Their power has limits. Someday, we’ll surpass those limits, if we’re only given a chance.”
“That’s a fine bedtime story,” said Locke. “If you wrote a book on that subject, I’d pay for ten copies to be scribed. But here and now, you’re interfering with our lives. You’re tearing us away from something we’ve worked long and hard to achieve.”
“I am prepared to expand on my earlier terms,” said Stragos, “and offer a financial reward for the successful completion of your task.”
“How much?” said Locke and Jean simultaneously.
“No promises,” said Stragos. “Your reward will be proportional to your achievement. I shall make you as happy as you make me. Is that understood?”
Locke stared at Stragos for several seconds, scratching his neck. Stragos was using a confidence trick—an appeal to high ideals, followed by an appeal to greed. And this was a classic fuck-the-agent situation; Stragos had no compulsion whatsoever to follow through on his promise, and nothing to lose by making it, and no reason at all to let him and Jean live once their task was finished. He made eye contact with Jean and stroked his chin several times, a simple hand signal: