'... 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 practise, won't we?'
'Hopefully. Hmmm. And we'll need a carpenter. One from 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 as 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 judgement of me like this.'
The two of them stared at one another, 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 through 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 arse when I need it.'
'I, ah, look - I apologize as well. I just?
'Dammit, 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 pickup 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 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 landscape, sloping downward to sea-cliffs perhaps five or six miles distant. Specks of grey 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. 'Alight 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?'
'Sounds 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 arse 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 all 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 time 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 for ever, Jean. I dunk we both realize that. Sooner or later we'll need to favour 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 neighbour, 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 grey 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
i
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 one another 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 harbour, 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 councillors, the independently rich and those guildmasters whose social positions required the most ostentations 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 travelled 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 Magisterial 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 fight, 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 fife.
