The Republic of Thieves

  A crewman had come up behind Jean with a belaying pin in hand. Jean sidestepped the man’s first attack and cracked the lantern across the top of his head. Glass shattered, and glowing white alchemical slime sprayed across the poor fellow from forehead to waist. It was generally harmless stuff, but nothing you wanted in your eyes. Moaning and glowing like a ghost out of some fairy story, the man fell against the foremast.

  In front of Locke, the jolly boat slid to starboard, hit the rail at speed, crashed through with a terrible splintering noise, and went over the side.

  “Thank the gods,” Locke muttered as he ran to the gap in the rail just in time to see the boat plunge bow-first into the water, like an arrowhead, and get immediately swallowed beneath a crashing wave. “Oh, COME ON!”

  “Jump,” hollered Jean, ducking a swing from a crewman who came at him with an oar. Jean slammed two punches into the unfortunate sailor’s ribs, and the man did a convincing imitation of a marionette with its strings cut. “Get the hell in the water!”

  “The boat sank!” Locke cried, scanning the darkness in vain for a glimpse of it. Whistles were sounding from the quarterdeck and from within the ship. The whole crew would be roused against them presently. “I don’t see it!”

  “Can’t hear you. Jump!” Jean dashed across the deck and gave Locke a well-meaning shove through the gap in the railing. There was no time to do anything but gasp in a surprised breath; Locke’s oilcloth fluttered around him as he fell like a wounded bat into the dark water of the Amathel.

  The cold hit like a shock. He whirled within the churning blackness, fighting against his cloak and the weight of his ankle manacles. They weren’t dragging him straight down, but they would sharply increase the rate at which he would exhaust himself by kicking to keep his head up.

  His face broke the surface; he choked in a breath of air and freshwater spray. The Volantyne’s Resolve loomed over him like a monstrous shadow, lit by the shuddering light of a dozen jumping, bobbing lanterns. A familiar dark shape detached itself from some sort of fight against the near rail, and fell toward the water.

  “Jean,” Locke sputtered, “there’s no—”

  The lost boat resurfaced like a broaching shark, spat up in a gushing white torrent. Jean landed on it facefirst with a ghastly thump and splashed heavily into the water beside it.

  “Jean,” Locke screamed, grabbing hold of one of the jolly boat’s gunwales and desperately scanning the water for any sign of his friend. The bigger man had already sunk beneath the surface. A wave crashed over Locke’s head and tore at his hold on the boat. He spat water and searched desperately … there! A dim shape drifted six or seven feet beneath Locke’s toes, lit from below by an eerie blue-white light. Locke dove just as another breaking wave hammered the boat.

  Locke grabbed Jean by the collar and felt cold dismay at the feeble response. For a moment it seemed that the two of them hung suspended in a gray netherworld between lurching wave tops and ghostly light, and Locke suddenly realized the source of the illumination around them. Not lightning or lanterns, but the unknown fires that burned at the very bottom of the Amathel.

  Glimpsed underwater, they lost their comforting jewel-like character, and seemed to roil and pulse and blur. They stung Locke’s eyes, and his skin crawled with the unreasonable, instinctive sensation that something utterly hostile was nearby—nearby and drawing closer. He hooked his hands under Jean’s arms and kicked mightily, heaving the two of them back toward the surface and the storm.

  He scraped his cheek against the jolly boat as he came up, sucked in a deep breath, and heaved at Jean again to get the larger man’s head above water. The cold was like a physical pressure, numbing Locke’s fingers and slowly turning his limbs to lead.

  “Come back to me, Jean,” Locke spat. “I know your brains are jarred, but Crooked Warden, come back!” He yanked at Jean, holding on to the gunwale of the wave-tossed boat with his other hand, and for all his pains succeeded only in nearly capsizing it again. “Shit!”

  Locke needed to get in first, but if he let Jean go Jean would probably sink again. He spotted the rowing lock, the U-shaped piece of cast iron set into the gunwale to hold an oar. It had been smashed by the boat’s slides across the deck, but it might serve a new purpose. Locke seized Jean’s oilcloak and twisted one end into a crude knot around the bent rowing lock, so that Jean hung from the boat by his neck and chest. Not a sensible way to leave him, but it would keep him from drifting away while Locke got aboard.

  A fresh wave knocked the side of the boat against Locke’s head. Black spots danced before his eyes, but the pain goaded him to furious action. He plunged into the blackness beneath the boat, then clawed his way up to the gunwale on the opposite side. Another wave struck, and out of its froth Locke scrabbled and strained until he was over the edge. He bounced painfully off a rowing bench and flopped into the ankle-deep water sloshing around the bottom.

  Locke reached over the side and grabbed Jean. His heaving was desperate, unbalanced, and useless. The little boat bobbled and shook with every effort, rising and falling on the waves like a piston in some nightmarish machine. At last Locke’s wits punched through the walls of his exhaustion and panic. He turned Jean sideways and hauled him in a foot and an arm at a time, using his oilcloak for added leverage. Once he was safely in, the bigger man coughed and mumbled and flopped around.

  “Oh, I hate the Eldren, Jean,” Locke gasped as they lay in the bottom of the tossing boat, lashed by waves and rain. “I hate ’em. I hate whatever they did, I hate the shit they left behind, I hate the way none of their mysteries ever turn out to be pleasant and fucking good-neighborly!”

  “Pretty lights,” muttered Jean.

  “Yeah, pretty lights,” Locke spat. “Friendly sailors, the Amathel has it all.”

  Locke nudged Jean aside and sat up. They were bobbing around like a wine cork in a cauldron set to boil, but now that their weight was in the center of the little boat, it seemed better able to bear the tossing. They had drifted astern and inshore of the Volantyne’s Resolve, which was now more than fifty yards away. Confused shouts could be heard, but the ship didn’t seem to be putting about to come after them. Locke could only hope that Jean’s cold-cocking of Volantyne would prevent the rest of the crew from getting things together until it was too late.

  “Holy hells,” said Jean, “how’d I geddhere?”

  “Never mind that. You see any oars?”

  “Uh, I thing I bead the crap out of the guy that had them.” Jean reached up and gingerly prodded his face. “Aw, gods, I thing I broge my node again!”

  “You used it to break your fall when you hit the boat.”

  “Is thad whad hid me?”

  “Yeah, scared me shitless.”

  “You saved me!”

  “It’s my turn every couple of years,” said Locke with a thin smile.

  “Thang you.”

  “All I did was save my own ass four or five times down the line,” said Locke. “And cut you in on a hell of a landing. If the waves keep taking us south, we should hit the beach in just a few miles, but without any oars to keep ourselves under control, it might be a hard way to leave the water.”

  The waves did their part, bearing their little boat south at a frightful clip, and when the beach finally came into sight their arrival went as hard as Locke had guessed. The Amathel flung them against the black volcanic sand like some monster vomiting up a plaything that had outlasted its interest.

  5

  THE COASTAL road west of Lashain was called the Darksands Stretch, and it was a lonely place to be traveling this windy autumn morning. A single coach, pulled by a team of eight horses, trundled along the centuries-old stones raising spurts of wet gravel in its wake rather than the clouds of dust more common in drier seasons.

  The secure coach service from Salon Corbeau and points farther south was for rich travelers unable to bear the thought of setting foot aboard a ship. With iron-bound doors, shuttered windows, and interior locks,
the carriage was a little fortress for passengers afraid of highwaymen.

  The driver wore an armored doublet, as did the guard that sat beside him atop the carriage, cradling a crossbow that looked as though it could put a hole the size of a temple window into whatever it was loosed at.

  “Hey there!” cried a thin man beside the road. He wore an oilcloak flung back from his shoulders, and there was a larger man on the ground beside him. “Help us, please!”

  Ordinarily, the driver would have whipped his team forward and raced past anyone attempting to stop them, but everything seemed wrong for an ambush. The ground here was flat for hundreds of yards around, and if these men were decoys, they couldn’t have any allies within half a mile. And their aspect seemed genuinely bedraggled: no armor, no weapons, none of the cocksure bravado of the true marauder. The driver pulled on the reins.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said the crossbowman.

  “Don’t get your cock tied in a knot,” said the driver. “You’re here to watch my back, aren’t you? Stranger! What goes?”

  “Shipwreck,” cried the thin man. He was scruffy-looking, of middle height, with light brown hair pulled loosely back at the neck. “Last night. We got washed ashore.”

  “What ship?”

  “Volantyne’s Resolve, out of Karthain.”

  “Is your friend hurt?”

  “He’s out cold. Are you bound for Lashain?”

  “Aye, twenty-six miles by road. Be there tomorrow. What would you have of us?”

  “Carry us, on horses or on your tailboard. Our master’s syndicate has a shipping agent in Lashain. He can pay for your trouble.”

  “Driver,” came a sharp, reedy voice from within the carriage, “it’s not my business to supply rescue to those witless enough to meet disaster on the Amathel, of all places. Pray for their good health if you must, but move on.”

  “Sir,” said the driver, “the fellow on the ground looks in a bad way. His nose is as purple as grapes.”

  “That’s not my concern.”

  “There are certain rules,” said the driver, “to how we behave out here, sir, and I’m sorry to have to refuse your command, but we’ll be on our way again soon.”

  “I won’t pay to feed them! And I won’t pay for the time we’re losing by sitting here!”

  “Sorry again, sir. It’s got to be done.”

  “You’re right,” said the crossbowman with a sigh. “These fellows ain’t no highwaymen.”

  The driver and the guard climbed down from their seat and walked over to where Locke stood over Jean.

  “If you could just help me haul him to his feet,” said Locke to the crossbowman, “we can try and bring him around.”

  “Beg pardon, stranger,” said the crossbowman, “it’s plain foolishness to set a loaded piece down. Takes nothing to set one off by accident. One nudge from a false step—”

  “Well, just point it away from us,” muttered the driver.

  “Are you drunk? This one time in Tamalek I saw a fellow set a crossbow down for just a—”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said the driver testily. “Never, ever set that weapon down for as long as you live. You might accidentally hit some fellow in Tamalek.”

  The guard sputtered, sighed, and carefully pointed the weapon at a patch of roadside sand. There was a loud, flat crack, and the quarrel was safely embedded in the ground up to its feathers.

  Thus, it was accomplished. Jean miraculously returned to life, and with a few quick swings of his fists he eloquently convinced the two guards to lie down and be unconscious for a while.

  “I am really, really sorry about this,” said Locke. “And you should know, that’s not how it normally goes with us.”

  “Well, how now, tenderhearts?” shouted the man within the carriage. “Shows what you know, eh? If you had any gods-damned brains you’d be inside one of these things, not driving it!”

  “They can’t hear you,” said Locke.

  “Marauders! Sons of filth! Motherless bastards!” The man inside the box cackled. “It’s all one to me, though. You can’t break in here. Steal whatever you like from my gutless hirelings, sirrahs, but you’ll not have anything of mine!”

  “Gods above,” said Locke. “Listen up, you heartless fucking weasel. Your fortress has wheels on it. About a mile to the east there are cliffs above the Amathel. We’ll unhitch you there and give your box a good shove over the edge.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “Then you’d better practice flying.” Locke hopped up into the driver’s seat and took the reins. “Come on, let’s take shit-sauce here for the shortest trip of his life.”

  Jean climbed up beside Locke. Locke urged the well-trained horses forward, and the coach began to roll.

  “Now wait a minute,” their suddenly unwilling passenger bellowed. “Stop, stop, stop!”

  Locke let him scream for about a hundred yards before he slowed the team back down.

  “If you want to live,” said Locke, “go ahead and open the—”

  The door banged open. The man who came out was about sixty, short and oval-bellied, with the eyes of a startled rabbit. His hat and dressing gown were crimson silk studded with gold buttons. Locke jumped down and glowered at him.

  “Take that ludicrous thing off,” he growled.

  The man quickly stripped to his undertunic. Locke gathered his finery, which reeked of sweat, and threw it into the carriage.

  “Where’s the food and water?”

  The man pointed to a storage compartment built into the outside rear of the carriage, just above the tailboard. Locke opened it, selected a few things for himself, then threw some of the neatly wrapped ration packages onto the dirt beside the road.

  “Go wake your friends up and enjoy the walk,” said Locke as he climbed back up beside Jean. “Shouldn’t be more than a day or so until you reach the outer hamlets of Lashain. Or maybe someone will come along and take pity on you.”

  “You bastards,” shouted the de-robed, de-carriaged man. “Thieving bastards! You’ll hang for this! I’ll see it done!”

  “That’s a remote possibility,” said Locke. “But you know what’s a certainty? Next fire I need to start, I’m using your clothes to do it, asshole.”

  He gave a cheery wave, and then the armored coach service was gathering speed along the road, bound not for Lashain but Karthain, the long way around the Amathel.

  III

  FATAL HONESTY

  I never knew any more beautiful than you:

  I have hunted you under my thoughts,

  I have broken down under the wind

  And into the roses looking for you.

  I shall never find any

  greater than you.

  —Carl Sandburg

  from “The Great Hunt”

  INTERLUDE

  AURIN AND AMADINE

  1

  “WHY IN ALL the hells do you take this abuse?” said Jean as he and Jenora sat together over coffee the second morning after the arrival of the Gentlemen Bastards in Espara. “Dealing with Moncraine, the debts, the bullshit—”

  “Those of us left are the stakeholders,” said Jenora. “We own shares in the common property, and shares of the profits, when those miraculously appear. Some of us saved for years to make these investments. If we walk away from Moncraine, we forfeit everything.”

  “Ah.”

  “Look at Alondo. He had a wild night at cards and he used the take to buy his claim in the troupe. That was three years ago. We were doing Ten Honest Turncoats then, and A Thousand Swords for Therim Pel and The All-Murderers Ball. A dozen full productions a year, masques for Countess Antonia, festival plays, and we were touring out west, where the countryside’s not the gods-damned waste it is between here and Camorr. I mean, we had prospects; we weren’t out of our minds.”

  “I never said you were.”

  “It’s mostly hired players and the short-timers that evaporated on us. They don’t have any anch
ors except a weekly wage, and they can make that with Basanti. Hell, they’ll happily take less from him, because at least they’re sure to play.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, staring into her mug as though it might conceal new answers. “I guess sometimes there’s just a darkness in someone. You hope it’ll go away.”

  “Moncraine, you mean.”

  “If you could have seen him back in those days, I think you’d understand. You know about the Forty Corpses?”

  “Um … if I say no, do I become the forty-first?”

  “If I killed people, glass-eyes, Moncraine wouldn’t have lived long enough to be arrested. The Forty Corpses is what we call the forty famous plays that survived the fall of the empire. The big ones by all the famous Throne Therins … Lucarno, Viscora, that bunch.”

  “Oh,” said Jean.

  “They’re called corpses because they haven’t changed for four or five centuries. I mean, we love them, most of them, but they do molder a bit. They get recited like temple ritual, dry and lifeless. Except, when Moncraine was on, when Moncraine was good, he made the corpses jump out of their graves. It was like he was a spark and the whole troupe would catch fire from it. And when you’ve seen that, when you’ve been a part of it … I tell you, Jovanno, you’d put up with nearly anything if only you could have it again.”

  “I am returned,” boomed a voice from the inn-yard door, “from the exile to which my pride had sentenced me!”

  “Oh, gods below, you people actually did it,” said Jenora, leaping out of her chair. A man entered the common room, a big dark Syresti in dirty clothing, and cried out when he saw her.

  “Jenora, my dusky vision, I knew that I could—”

  Whatever he’d known was lost as Jenora’s open palm slammed into his cheek. Jean blinked; her arm had been a pale brown arc. He made a mental note that she was quick when angered.

  “Jasmer,” she hollered, “you stupid, stubborn, bottle-sucking, lard-witted fuck! You nearly ruined us! It wasn’t your damn pride that put you in gaol, it was your fists!”