'That you are a threat to the Priori, and that in light of sums paid for their services previously, they thought it in their best interests to tender a warning of your presence.'
'To the Inner Seven, you mean.'
'Yes.'
'You stupid bastards,' said Locke. 'The Bondsmagi used you, Cordo. Think on that next time you consider giving them money. We - Master de Ferra and myself - are on their fuck-with list, and they tossed us
between you and Stragos for a laugh. That's all! We didn't come here to do anything to the Priori.7
'So you say?
'Why aren't I murdering you right now, then?'
'A simultaneously pleasing and vexing point,' said Cordo, biting his lip.
'The fact is,' said Locke, 'that for reasons which are forever going to remain way the hell beyond your understanding, I've broken into your manor to do one thing - give you the head of Maxilan Stragos on a platter.'
'What?'
'Not literally. I have plans for that head, actually. But I know how gods-damned happy you'd be to have the Archonate kicked over like an ant hill, so I'm only going to say this once: I mean to remove Maxilan Stragos from power permanently, and I mean to do it tonight. I must have your help.'
'But... you are some sort of agent of the Archon?
'Jerome and I are unwilling agents,' said Locke. 'Stragos's personal alchemist gave us a latent poison. So long as Stragos controls the antidote, we can serve him or die pretty awfully. But the fucker just had to keep pushing us, and now he's pushed too far.'
'You could be ... you could be provocateurs, sent by Stragos to?
'What, test your loyalty? In what court, under what oath, before what law? Same question as before, this time in relation to the idiotic conjecture that I actually do Stragos's bidding - why aren't I murdering you, then?'
'As to that... a fair point.'
'Here,' said Locke, moving around the bed to sit beside Cordo. 'Have a dagger.' He tossed his blade into the old man's lap. At that moment, there was a pounding on the door.
'Father! Father, one of the servants is injured! Are you well? Father, I'm coming in!'
'My son has a key,' said the elder Cordo as the click of it sounded in the door mechanism.
'Ah,' said Locke, 'I'll be needing this back, then.' He snatched up his dagger again, stood beside Cordo and pointed it at the old man in a vaguely threatening fashion. 'Hold still. This won't take but a minute.'
A well-built man in his mid-thirties burst into the room, an ornate rapier in his hands. Lyonis Cordo, second-tier Priori, his father's only
heir and a widower for several years. Perhaps the most eligible bachelor in all of Tal Verrar, all the more notable in that he rarely visited the Sinspire.
'Father! Alacyn!' Lyonis took a step into the room, brandishing his weapon with a flourish and spreading his arms to block the door. 'Release them, you bastards! The household guards are roused, and you'll never make it down to the?
'Oh, for Perelandro's sake, I'm not even going to pretend,' said Locke. He passed the dagger back to the elder Cordo, who held it between two fingers like some sort of captured insect. 'Look. There. What sort of whimsical assassin am I, then? Sheathe your sword, shut the door and open your ears. We have a lot of business to discuss.'
'I... but?
'Lyonis,' said the elder Cordo, 'this man may be out of his mind, but as he says, neither he nor his partner are assassins. Put up your weapon and tell the guards to ...' He turned to Locke suspiciously. 'Did you badly injure any of my people breaking in, Kosta?'
'One slight bump on the head,' said Locke. 'Do it all the time. He'll be fine, whoever he is.'
'Very well.' Marius sighed and passed the dagger fussily back to Locke, who tucked it back into his belt. 'Lyonis, tell the guards to stand down. Then lock the door again and be seated.'
'May I go, if nobody's going to be doing any assassinating in these chambers?' asked Alacyn.
'No. Sorry. You've already heard too much. Take a seat and get comfortable while you listen to the rest.' Locke turned to the elder Cordo. 'Look, for obvious reasons, she cannot leave this house until our business is done tonight, right?'
'Of all the?
'No, Alacyn, he's right.' The elder Cordo waved his hands pla-catingly. 'Too much rides on this, and if you're loyal to me you know it. If, forgive me, you're not, you know it all the more. I'll have you confined to the study, where you'll be comfortable. And I'll compensate you very, very handsomely for this, I promise.'
Released by Jean, she sat down in a corner and folded her arms grumpily. Lyonis, looking as though he doubted his own sanity, briskly dismissed the squad of tough-looking brutes that pounded into the library a moment later, sheathed his rapier and pulled the bedchamber door closed. He leaned back against it, his scowl matching Alacyn's.
'Now,' said Locke, 'as I was saying, by the end of this night, come hell or Eldren-fire, my partner and I will be in close physical proximity to Maxilan Stragos. One way or another, we are removing him from power. Possibly from life itself, if we have no choice. But in order to get there our way, we're going to need to demand some things of you. And you must understand, going in, that this is it. This is for real. Whatever your plans are to take the city from Stragos, have them ready to spring. Whatever your measures are to keep his army and navy tied down until you can remind them who pays their salaries, activate them.'
'Remove Stragos?' Lyonis looked simultaneously awed and alarmed. 'Father, these men are mad?
'Quiet, Lyo.' The elder Cordo raised his hand. 'These men claim to be in a unique position to effect our desired change. And they have ... declined to harm me for certain actions already taken against them. We will hear them out.'
'Good,' said Locke. 'Here's what you need to understand. In a couple of hours, Master de Ferra and I are going to be arrested by the Eyes of the Archon as we leave the Sinspire?
'Arrested?' said Lyonis. 'How can you know?
'Because I'm going to set an appointment,' said Locke. 'And I'm going to ask Stragos to have us arrested.'
4
'The Protector will not see you, nor will the waiting lady. Those are our orders.'
Locke was sure he could feel the Eye officer's disdainful glare even through his mask.
'He will now,' said Locke, as he and Jean pulled alongside the Archon's landing in the smaller, more nimble boat they had talked out of the elder Cordo. 'Tell him that we've done as he requested when we last met, and we really need to speak about it.'
The officer took a few seconds to consider, then went for the signal-chain. While they waited for a decision, Locke and Jean removed all of their weapons and gear, stashed it in their bags and left those in the bottom of the boat. Eventually, Merrain appeared at the top of the landing stairs and beckoned; they were patted down with the usual thoroughness and escorted up to the Archon's study.
Jean trembled at the sight of Stragos, who was standing behind his
desk. Locke noticed Jean clenching and unclenching his fists, so he squeezed his arm hard.
'Is this happy news?' asked the Archon.
'Has anyone come in to report a fire at sea yesterday, around noon, anywhere west of the city?' asked Locke.
'Two merchant ships reported a large pillar of smoke on the western horizon,' said Stragos. 'No further news that I'm aware of, and no syndicate claiming any loss.'
'They will soon enough,' said Locke. 'One ship, burned and sunk. Not a survivor aboard. It was headed for the city and it was wallowing with cargo, so I'm sure it will be missed eventually.'
'Eventually,' said Stragos. 'So what do you want now, a kiss on the cheek and a plate of sweetmeats? I told you not to trifle with me again until?
'Think of our first sinking as earnest money,' said Locke. 'We've decided that we want to show our wine and drink it, too.'
'Meaning what, exactly?'
'We want the fruit of our efforts at the Sinspire,' said Locke. 'We want what we spent two years working for. And we want it tonight, before we do anything else.'
'Well, you can't necessarily have it tonight. What, did you imagine I could give you some sort of writ, a polite request to Requin to allow you to carry out whatever your game is?'
'No,' said Locke, 'but we're going over there right now to pull it on him, and until we're safely away with our swag, not another ship gets sunk in your waters at the hands of the Poison Orchid?
'You do not dictate the terms of your employment to me?
T do, actually. Even if we are trusting you to give us our lives back when our enslavement to you is complete, we're no longer confident that the conditions in this city will allow us to pull our Sinspire scheme after you get your way. Think, Stragos. We certainly have been. If you mean to put the Priori squarely under your thumb, there could be chaos. Bloodshed and arrests. Requin's in bed with the Priori; his fortune needs to be intact if we're going to relieve him of any of it. So we want what's ours safely in our hands first, before we finish this affair for you.'
'You arrogant?
'Yes,' Locke shouted. 'Me. Arrogant. We still need our fucking antidote, Stragos. We still need it from your hands. And we demand
another extension, if nothing else. Tonight. I want to see your alchemist standing beside you when we return here in a couple of hours.'
'Of all the bloody?What do you mean, "when you return here"?'
'There's only one way for us to walk away safely from the Sinspire, once Requin knows we've taken him for a ride,' said Locke. 'We need to leave the place and walk directly into the hands of your Eyes, who'll be waiting to arrest us.'
'Why, before all the gods, would I have them do that?'
'Because once we're safely back here,' said Locke, 'we will slip out quietly and return to the Poison Orchid, and later this very night we'll hit the Silver Marina itself. Drakasha has one hundred and fifty crew-folk, and we spent the afternoon taking two fishing boats to use as fire-craft. You wanted the crimson flag in sight of your city? By the gods, we'll put it in the harbour. Smash and burn as much as we can, and hit whatever's in reach on our way out. The Priori will be at your gates with bags of money, pleading for a saviour. The people will riot if they don't get one. Is that immediate enough for you? We can do what you want. We can do it tonight. And a punitive raid on the Ghostwind Isles - well, how quickly can you pack your sea-chest, Protector?'
'What are you taking from Requin?' asked Stragos, after a long, silent rumination.
'Nothing that can't be transported by one man in a serious hurry.'
'Requin's vault is impenetrable.'
'We know,' said Locke. 'What we're after isn't in it.'
'How can I be sure you won't get yourselves uselessly killed while doing this?'
'I can assure you we will,' said Locke, 'unless we find immediate safety in the public, legal custody of your Eyes. And then we vanish, whisked away for crimes against the Verrari state, on a matter of the Archonate's privilege. A privilege which you will soon be at leisure to flaunt. Come on, admit that it's bloody beautiful.'
'You will leave the object of your desire with me,' said the Archon. 'Steal it. Fine. Transport it here. But since you'll need your poison neutralized anyway, I will keep it for you until we part.'
'That's?
'A necessary comfort to myself,' said Stragos, his voice laden with threat. 'Two men who knew themselves to be facing certain death could easily flee, and then drink, binge and whore themselves in comfort for
several weeks before the end, if they suddenly found a large sum of money in their hands, couldn't they?'
'I suppose you're right,' said Locke, feigning irritation. 'Every single thing we leave with you?
'Will be given scrupulous good care. Your investment of two years will be waiting for you at our parting of the ways.'
'I suppose we have no choice, then. Agreed.'
'Then I will have a writ made out immediately for the arrest of Leocanto Kosta and Jerome de Ferra,' said Stragos. 'And I will grant this request - and then, by the gods, you and that Syresti bitch had better deliver.'
'We will,' said Locke. 'To the utmost of our ability. An oath has been sworn.'
'My soldiers?
'Eyes,' said Locke. 'Send Eyes. There have to be agents of the Priori among your regulars; I'm staking my life on the fact that you keep more of an eye on your Eyes, as it were. Plus they scare the shit out of people. This is a shock operation.'
'Hmmm,' said Stragos. 'The suggestion is reasonable.'
'Then please listen carefully,' said Locke.
5
It felt good to be stripping down to nothing.
Emerging from a long spell of false-facing could be like coming up for air after nearly drowning, Locke thought. Now all the baggage of their multi-tiered lies and identities was peeling away, sloughing off behind them as they pounded up the stairs to the Golden Steps one last time. Now that they knew the source of their mystery assassins, they had no need to sham as priests and skulk about; they could run like simple thieves with the powers of the city close on their heels.
Which was exactly what they were.
He and Jean should have been loving it, laughing about it together, revelling in their usual breathless joy at crime well executed. Richer and cleverer than everyone else. But tonight Locke was doing all the talking; tonight Jean struggled to keep his composure until the moment he could lash out, and gods help whoever got in his way when he did.
