“You put something else in the cider,” said Jean.
“Of course,” said Stragos. “An excellent little poison.”
4
FOR A moment, the room was utterly silent, save for the soft fluttering of artificial insect wings. Then Locke and Jean stumbled up from their chairs in unison, but Stragos didn’t so much as twitch. “Sit down. Unless you’d prefer not to hear exactly what’s going on.”
“You drank from the same bottle,” said Locke, still standing.
“Of course I did. It wasn’t actually in the cider. It was in your goblets, painted into the bottoms. Colorless and tasteless. A proprietary alchemical substance, quite expensive. You should be flattered. I’ve increased your net personal worth, heh.”
“I know a thing or two about poisons. What is it?”
“What would be the sense in telling you anything more? You might attempt to have someone assemble an antidote. As it stands, your only possible source for your antidote is me.” He smiled, every pretense of contrite gentility shed from his features like a molted insect’s husk. A very different Stragos was with them now, and there was a lash in his voice. “Sit down. You’re at my disposal now, obviously. You’re not what I might have wanted, by the gods, but perhaps just what I can best put to use.”
Locke and Jean settled back into their chairs uneasily. Locke threw his goblet down onto the carpet, where it bounced and rolled to a halt beside Stragos’ table.
“You might as well know,” said Locke, “that I’ve been poisoned for coercive purposes before.”
“Have you? How convenient. Then surely you’ll agree it’s better than being poisoned for murderous ones.”
“What would you have us do?”
“Something useful,” said Stragos. “Something grand. According to this report, you’re the Thorn of Camorr. My agents brought me stories of you…the most ridiculous rumors, which now turn out to have been true. I thought you were a myth.”
“The Thorn of Camorr is a myth,” said Locke. “And it was never just me. We’ve always worked as a group, as a team.”
“Of course. No need to stress Master Tannen’s importance to me. It’s all here, in this file. I shall keep you both alive while I prepare for the task I have in mind for you. I’m not ready to discuss it yet, so let us say that I’m keeping you on retainer in the meantime. Go about your business. When I call, you will come.”
“Will we?” spat Locke.
“Oh, it’s well within your power to leave the city—and if you do, you will both die rather slow and miserable deaths before another season passes. And that would disappoint us all.”
“You could be bluffing,” said Jean.
“Yes, yes, but if you’re rational men, a bluff would hold you as surely as a real poison, would it not? But come now, Tannen. I have the resources not to bluff.”
“And what’s to keep us from running after we’ve received the antidote?”
“The poison is latent, Lamora. It slumbers within the body for many, many months, if not years. I will dole out your antidote at intervals so long as you please me.”
“And what guarantee do we have that you’ll continue to give us the antidote once we’ve done whatever task you’d set us to?”
“You have none.”
“And no better alternatives.”
“Of course not.”
Locke closed his eyes and gently massaged them with the knuckles of his index fingers. “Your alleged poison. Will it interfere with our daily lives in any way? Will it complicate matters of judgment, agility, or health?”
“Not at all,” said Stragos. “You won’t notice a thing until the time for the antidote is well past, and then you’ll notice a great deal all at once. Until then, your affairs will be unimpeded.”
“But you have already impeded our affairs,” said Jean. “We’re at a very delicate point in our dealings with Requin.”
“He gave us strict orders,” said Locke, “to do nothing suspicious while he sniffs around our recent activities. Disappearing from the streets in the care of the archon’s people would probably qualify as suspicious.”
“Already taken into consideration,” said the archon. “Most of the people who pulled you two off the street are in one of Requin’s gangs. He just doesn’t know they work for me. They’ll report seeing you out and about, even if others do not.”
“Are you confident that Requin is blind to their true loyalty?”
“Gods bless your amusing insolence, Lamora, but I’m not going to justify my every order to you. You’ll accept them like my other soldiers, and if you must trust, trust in the judgment that has kept me seated as archon for fifteen years.”
“It’s our lives under Requin’s thumb if you’re wrong, Stragos.”
“It’s your lives under my thumb, regardless.”
“Requin is no fool!”
“Then why are you attempting to steal from him?”
“We flatter ourselves,” said Jean, “that we’re—”
“I’ll tell you why,” Stragos interrupted. He closed his file and folded his hands atop it. “You’re not just greedy. You two have an unhealthy lust for excitement. The contemplation of long odds must positively get you drunk. Or else why choose the life you have, when you could have obviously succeeded as thieves of a more mundane stripe, within the limits allowed by that Barsavi?”
“If you think that little pile of papers gives you enough knowledge to presume so much—”
“You two are risk-takers. Exceptional, professional risk-takers. I have just the risk for you to take. You might even enjoy it.”
“That might have been true,” said Locke, “before you told us about the cider.”
“Obviously I know that what I’ve done will give you cause to bear me malice. Appreciate my position. I’ve done this to you because I respect your abilities. I can’t afford to have you in my service without controls. You’re a lever and a fulcrum, you two, looking for a city to turn upside down.”
“Why the hell couldn’t you just hire us?”
“How would money be sufficient leverage for two men who can conjure it as easily as you?”
“So the fact that you’re screwing us like a Jeremite cot doxy is really a very sweet compliment?” said Jean. “You fucking—”
“Calm down, Tannen,” said Stragos.
“Why should he?” Locke straightened his sweat-rumpled tunic and began tying his wrinkled neck-cloths back on in an agitated huff. “You poison us, lay a mysterious task at our feet, and offer no pay. You complicate our lives as Kosta and de Ferra, and you expect to summon us at your leisure when you condescend to reveal this chore. Gods. What about expenses, should we incur them?”
“You shall have any funds and material you require to operate in my service. And before you get excited, remember that you’ll account for every last centira properly.”
“Oh, splendid. And what other perquisites does this job of yours entail? Complimentary luncheon at the barracks of your Eyes? Convalescent beds when Requin cuts our balls off and has them sewn into our eye sockets?”
“I am not accustomed to being spoken to in this—”
“Get accustomed to it,” snapped Locke, rising out of his chair and beginning to dust off his coat. “I have a counterproposal, one I urge you to entertain quite seriously.”
“Oh?”
“Forget about this, Stragos.” Locke drew on his coat, shook his shoulders to settle it properly, and gripped it by the lapels. “Forget about this whole ridiculous scheme. Give us enough antidote, if there is one, to settle us for the time being. Or let us know what it is and we’ll have our own alchemist see to it, with our own funds. Send us back to Requin, for whom you profess no love, and let us get on with robbing him. Bother us no further, and we’ll return the favor.”
“What could that possibly gain me?”
“My point is more that it would allow you to keep everything you have now.”
“My dear Lamora,” laughed Stragos w
ith a soft, dry sound like an echo inside a coffin, “your bluster may be sufficient to convince some sponge-spined Camorri mongrel don to hand over his coin purse. It might even be enough to see you through the task I have in mind. But you’re mine now, and the Bondsmagi were rather clear on how you might be humbled.”
“Oh? How’s that, then?”
“Threaten me one more time and I shall have Jean returned to the sweltering room for the rest of the night. You may wait, chained outside in perfect comfort, imagining what it must be like for him. And the reverse, Jean, should you decide to wax rebellious.”
Locke clenched his jaw and looked down at his feet. Jean sighed, reached over, and patted him on the arm. Locke nodded very slightly.
“Good.” Stragos smiled without warmth. “Just as I respect your abilities, I respect your loyalty to one another. I respect it enough to use it, for good and for ill. So you will want to come at my summons, and accept the task I have for you…. It’s when I refuse to see you that you will begin to have cause for concern.”
“So be it,” said Locke. “But I want you to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“That I offered to let this go,” said Locke. “That I offered to simply walk away.”
“Gods, but you do think highly of yourself, don’t you, Master Lamora?”
“Just highly enough. No higher than the Bondsmagi, I’d say.”
“Are you suggesting that Karthain fears you, Master Lamora? Please. If that were so, they would have killed you already. No. They don’t fear you—they want to see you punished. Giving you over to me to suit my own purposes seems to accomplish that in their eyes. I daresay you’ve good reason to bear them malice.”
“Indeed,” said Locke.
“Consider for a moment,” said Stragos, “the possibility that I might not like them any more than you do. And that while I might use them, out of necessity, and freely accept windfalls they send in my direction…your service on my behalf might actually come to work against them. Doesn’t that intrigue you?”
“Nothing you say can be taken in good faith.” Locke glowered.
“Ahhh. That’s where you’re wrong, Lamora. With the benefit of time, you’ll see how little need I have to lie about anything. Now, this audience is over. Reflect on your situation, and don’t do anything rash. You may remove yourselves from the Mon Magisteria and return when summoned.”
“Wait,” said Locke. “Just—”
The archon rose, tucked the file under his arm, turned, and left the room through the same door he’d used to enter. It swung shut immediately behind him with the clatter of steel mechanisms.
“Hell,” said Jean.
“I’m sorry,” muttered Locke. “I was so keen to come to Tal fucking Verrar.”
“It’s not your fault. We were both eager to hop in bed with the wench; it’s just shit luck she turned out to have the clap.”
The main doors to the office creaked open, revealing a dozen Eyes waiting in the hall beyond.
Locke stared at the Eyes for several seconds, then grinned and cleared his throat. “Oh, good. Your master has left strict instructions placing you at our disposal. We’re to have a boat, eight rowers, a hot meal, five hundred solari, six women who know how to give a proper massage, and—”
One thing Locke would say for the Eyes was that when they seized him and Jean to “escort” them from the Mon Magisteria, they were firm without being needlessly cruel. Their clubs remained at their belts, and there were a minimal number of body blows to soften the resolve of their prisoners. All in all, a very efficient bunch to be manhandled by.
5
THEY WERE rowed back to the lower docks of the Savrola in a long gig with a covered gallery. It was nearly dawn, and a watery orange light was coming up over the landside of Tal Verrar, peeking over the islands and making their seaward faces seem darker by contrast. Surrounded by the archon’s oarsmen and watched by four Eyes with crossbows, Locke and Jean said nothing.
Their exit was quick; the boat simply drew up to the edge of one deserted quay and Locke and Jean hopped out. One of the archon’s soldiers threw a leather sack out onto the stones at their feet, and then the gig was backing away, and the whole damnable episode was over. Locke felt a strange daze and he rubbed his eyes, which felt dry within their sockets.
“Gods,” said Jean. “We must look as though we’ve been mugged.”
“We have been.” Locke reached down, picked up the sack, and examined its contents—Jean’s two hatchets and their assortment of daggers. He grunted. “Magi. Gods-damned Bondsmagi!”
“This must be what they had in mind.”
“I hope it’s all they have in mind.”
“They’re not all-knowing, Locke. They must have weaknesses.”
“Must they really? And do you know what they are? Might one of them be allergic to exotic foods, or suffer poor relations with his mother? Some good that does us, when they’re well beyond dagger reach! Crooked Warden, why don’t dog’s assholes like Stragos ever want to simply hire us for money? I’d be happy to work for fair pay.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Feh.”
“Quit scowling and think for a moment. You heard Stragos’ report. The Bondsmagi knew about the preparations we’ve made for going after Requin’s vault, but they didn’t know the whole story. The important part.”
“Right…but what need would there be for them to tell Stragos everything?”
“None, of course, but also…they knew where we were operating from in Camorr, but he didn’t mention our history. Stragos spoke of Barsavi, but not Chains. Perhaps because Chains died before the Falconer ever came to Camorr and started observing us? I don’t think the Bondsmagi can read our thoughts, Locke. I think they’re magnificent spies, but they’re not infallible. We still have some secrets.”
“Hmmm. Forgive me if I find that a cold comfort, Jean. You know who waxes philosophical about the tiniest weaknesses of enemies? The powerless.”
“You seem resigned to that without much of a—”
“I’m not resigned, Jean. I’m angry. We need to cease being powerless as soon as possible.”
“Right. So where do we start?”
“Well, I’m going to go back to the inn. I’m going to pour a gallon of cold water down my throat. I’m going to get into bed, put a pillow over my head, and stay there until sunset.”
“I approve.”
“Good. Then we’ll both be well rested when it comes time to get up and find a black alchemist. I want a second opinion on latent poisons. I want to know everything there is to know about the subject, and whether there are any antidotes we can start trying.”
“Agreed.”
“After that, we can add one more small item to our agenda for this Tal Verrar holiday of ours.”
“Kick the archon in the teeth?”
“Gods yes,” said Locke, smacking a fist into an open palm. “Whether or not we finish the Requin job first. Whether or not there really is a poison! I’m going to take his whole bloody palace and shove it so far up his ass he’ll have stone towers for tonsils!”
“Any plans to that effect?”
“No idea. I’ve no idea whatsoever. I’ll reflect on it, that’s for damn sure. But as for not being rash, well, no promises.”
Jean grunted. The two of them turned and began to plod along the quay, toward the stone steps that would lead laboriously to the island’s upper tier. Locke rubbed his stomach and felt his skin crawling…felt violated somehow, knowing that something lethal might be slipping unfelt into the darkest crevices of his own body, waiting to do mischief.
On their right the sun was a burning bronze medallion coming up over the city’s horizon, perched there like one of the archon’s faceless soldiers, gazing steadily down upon them.
REMINISCENCE
The Lady of the Glass Pylon
1
Azura Gallardine was not an easy woman to speak to. To be sure, hers was a well-known titl
e (second mistress of the Great Guild of Artificers, Reckoners, and Minutiary Artisans), and her address was common knowledge (the intersection of Glassbender Street and the Avenue of the Cog-Scrapers, West Cantezzo, Fourth Tier, Artificers’ Crescent), but anyone approaching that home had to walk forty feet off the main pedestrian thoroughfare.
Those forty feet were one hell of a thing to contemplate.
Six months had passed since Locke and Jean had come to Tal Verrar; the personalities of Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra had evolved from bare sketches to comfortable second skins. Summer had been dying when they’d clattered down the road toward the city for the first time, but now the hard, dry winds of winter had given way to the turbulent breezes of early spring. It was the month of Saris, in the seventy-eighth year of Nara, the Plaguebringer, Mistress of Ubiquitous Maladies.
Jean rode in a padded chair at the stern of a hired luxury scull, a low, sleek craft crewed by six rowers. It sliced across the choppy waters of Tal Verrar’s main anchorage like an insect in haste, ducking and weaving between larger vessels in accordance with the shouted directions of a teenage girl perched in its bow.
It was a windy day, with the milky light of the sun pouring down without warmth from behind high veils of clouds. Tal Verrar’s anchorage was crowded with cargo lighters, barges, small boats, and the great ships of a dozen nations. A squadron of galleons from Emberlain and Parlay rode low in the water with the aquamarine-and-gold banners of the Kingdom of the Seven Marrows fluttering at their sterns. A few hundred yards away, Jean could see a brig flying the white flag of Lashain, and beyond that a galley with the banner of the Marrows over the smaller pennant of the Canton of Balinel, which was just a few hundred miles north up the coast from Tal Verrar.
Jean’s scull was rounding the southern tip of the Merchants’ Crescent, one of three sickle-shaped islands that surrounded the Castellana at the city’s center like the encompassing petals of a flower. His destination was the Artificers’ Crescent, home of the men and women who had raised the art of clockwork mechanics from an eccentric hobby to a vibrant industry. Verrari clockwork was more delicate, more subtle, more durable—more anything, as required—than that fashioned by all but a handful of masters anywhere else in the known world.