The Republic of Thieves

by Scott Lynch

  She held up her left arm and let the robe sleeve fall away to reveal her five tattooed rings.

  “I am not a gods-damned mage,” said Locke, hoarsely.

  “Not anymore,” said Patience.

  “You’re making this shit up!” said Locke, enunciating each word, willing them into some sort of emotional talisman. “So you know a … a name. I admit that I’m astonished. But I am … I don’t know how old I am, exactly, but I can’t be yet thirty. Thirty! This man you’re talking about would be older than you!”

  “Originally,” said Patience. “And in a manner of speaking you still are.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Twenty-three years ago, an orphan with no past appeared in the aftermath of a deadly plague. Didn’t I just tell you what happens when our most forbidden art is practiced? A dreadful backlash against life itself. Sickness. The Black Whisper that came out of nowhere. Lamor Acanthus was in Camorr, hidden away in the hovels of Catchfire. That’s where you continued your studies, using the poor and the forgotten as your subjects.”

  “Oh, bullshit—”

  “We know,” said Patience. “There was a sorcerous event in Camorr before the plague erupted. Several members of my order were near enough to feel it. When the quarantine was lifted, our people were there in force. We sifted Catchfire house by house, until we found our answer. Magical apparatus. The papers and diaries of Lamor Acanthus, along with his body, plainly identifiable by the tattooed rings. And so we thought the matter was ended, horribly, but ultimately for the better.

  “Years passed. Then came the unpleasant business involving my son. It brought you to our attention. You and Jean were carefully examined. Particularly Jean, since our possession of his red name made things so much easier. Imagine the intensity of our surprise when he told us that his closest friend, a Camorri orphan, had confessed to the secret name of Lamor Acanthus.”

  “You … told Jean your true name?” said Sabetha. Locke desperately insisted to himself that he was only imagining the hurt beneath her surprise.

  “I, uh, well … shit.” His wits, smashed to paste, couldn’t seem to make the heroic effort required to rouse themselves. “I always meant to tell you. I just—”

  “He told Jean a true name,” said Patience. “But there’s still another, isn’t there? You’ve got gray names under gray names, Locke. Lamor Acanthus no more gives me the key to you than Locke Lamora or Leo-canto Kosta or Sebastian Lazari does. Beneath it all is another name, the one my mentor would never have shared with another mage. So I don’t know what it is … perhaps you don’t even remember it. But you and I both know it’s there.”

  “I’m not what you say I am.” Locke slumped in Sabetha’s arms, despondent. “I was born in Camorr.”

  “Your body was. Don’t you see? Lamor Acanthus succeeded, after a fashion. That’s why the outbreak of plague was so sudden, so virulent. You tore your own spirit from its old body. You stole a new one. A second youth, a new wealth of years to spend honing your powers. But that’s not how it worked out.… Your memories were fragmented, your personality burnt away. You locked yourself into a body that didn’t have the gift you used to put yourself there. It took more than twenty years for us to see both pieces of the puzzle, but surely you can’t deny that they fit together smoothly.”

  “I can,” said Locke. “I sure as hell can deny it!”

  “Why do you think I’ve confided in you?” Patience sighed with the quiet exasperation of a teacher drilling a particularly slow pupil. “Told you what I have of magic, shown you what I have of the magi? Did you think I was just being chatty? Did you really believe you were so very special? I do need you in your capacity as my exemplar for the five-year game. But I also used that to justify bringing you here, to give us more time to study you. To give myself time to make this approach.”

  “This is some cruel fucking game of yours,” said Locke.

  “You’re still one of us, after a fashion,” said Patience. “You have obligations to us, and we to you. One of those obligations is the truth. If the two of you hadn’t rekindled your private affair, I could have postponed this. As it stands, you both have the right to know, and I had the responsibility to tell you.” Patience gently touched one of Sabetha’s arms. “I know the reason, you see, why he’s dreamed of redheaded women all of his—”

  “Stop!” Sabetha jerked away from Patience, stood up, and backed away from Locke as well. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t want to hear any more!”

  “Don’t tell me you believe her!” said Locke.

  “Coincidence piles on coincidence until the evidence becomes too strong to ignore,” said Patience.

  “Stuff it,” growled Sabetha. “I don’t … I don’t know what the hell to think about this, Locke, I just—”

  “You do believe it.” Shock turned in an instant to hot anger. Confused and reeling, Locke was primed to lash out at any target he could find. Before he knew what he was doing, he chose the wrong one. “All the things we’ve done, all the time we’ve spent rebuilding this … and you believe her!”

  “You told me you named yourself after a sailor,” she said, unsteadily. “Did you believe that? Do you … believe it now? How can you be sure that you weren’t just filling some hole, or having it filled by someone else’s—”

  “How can you even think this?” Anger flared on top of anger, hot and sharp as a knife just pulled from flame. “You left me! You manipulated me, you fucking drugged me, and I still came back. But one story from this fucking Karthani witch and you’re looking at me like I just fell out of the gods-damned sky! Wait, no, shit—”

  His remorse and better judgment arrived, late as usual, like party guests riding in just after the social disaster of the season has already erupted. Sabetha’s cheeks darkened, and she opened her mouth several times, but in the end she said nothing. She turned with all the awful, decisive grace of womanly anger, threw the balcony doors open with a slam, and vanished into the darkened house.

  Locke stared after her, dumbfounded, dully listening to the drumbeat rhythm of the pulse in his temples. A moment later he leapt to his feet, grabbed the silver bucket containing the chilled wine, and flung it with a snarl against the oak cooking table. Ingredients flew, glass shattered, and ice and wine alike splashed into the brazier, where they raised a soft cloud of hissing steam.

  “Thanks for your evenhanded fucking presentation, Patience.” He kicked a fragment of broken glass and watched it skitter off the edge of the balcony. “Thanks for all your kind efforts on my behalf, you … you—”

  “My responsibility was to tell you the truth, not wrap you in swaddling clothes.” She raised her hood again, half-veiling her face in shadow. “Nor protect you from your own badly aimed temper. Take it from someone who was courted into a happy marriage, Master Lamora. Your style of wooing couldn’t be more perfectly designed to deliver you to a solitary life.”

  “Go light yourself on fire,” said Locke, suddenly regretting that he’d smashed the only bottle of liquor he’d thought to set out on the balcony.

  “We’ll speak more of this later,” said Patience. “And once the election is finished, we’ll discuss arrangements for the future.”

  “I don’t believe a thing you’ve said,” Locke whispered, knowing how little conviction was in his voice.

  “You refused to believe that I preserved your life in Tal Verrar for reasons of conscience. Now I give you the self-interested motive you previously insisted upon, and you refuse to believe it as well. Are you really that arrogant, that logic is as optional as a fashion accessory for you? You can certainly choose to believe that we’d entrust a normal man with even the fragments of guarded truth I’ve shown you. Or you can open your eyes. Accept that we’ve given you a chance to solve the mysteries of your past. Perhaps even a chance to redeem yourself for a terrible crime. A crime whose first victim’s stolen body you will wear like a mask until the day you die.”

  Locke said nothing, staring
at the mess he’d made of the ingredients for the feast he’d been happily planning to cook not a quarter of an hour earlier.

  “Brood all you like,” said Patience. “Sulk all night. You’ve an uncanny talent for it, haven’t you? But in the morning, we expect that you’ll be sober, and focused, and working furiously on our behalf. My more enthusiastic young peers imagine that their colorful threats to you have escaped my notice. But now I suspect you understand how little value I place on Jean Tannen for his own sake, and how … discretionary my protection of him might be. Jean’s continued safety is entirely dependent on your discipline and inspiration.”

  Patience turned and slowly strolled away into the house.

  “Gods save him,” she called over her shoulder.

  She left Locke standing alone on the balcony, and didn’t bother closing the doors behind her.

  INTERSECT (III)

  SPARK

  THE OLD MAN quietly withdrew the observation spell he’d woven around Archedama Patience, the most complex work of his life, and breathed a long sigh of relief. The strain of spying, and of conveying the results of that spying in thought to his contact on the other side of the city, had tested him sorely.

  This can’t be true! He could feel the fury behind the thoughts that hammered him from that contact now. Archedama Foresight was powerful, and her anger came on like the pressure of a rising headache. I’ve heard NOTHING of this! Have the other three gone MAD?

  Please calm down, Archedama. I’ve had a difficult evening. They’re not mad … but they have gone too far. You see now why I had to tell you.

  How has this been concealed from me?

  Patience claimed the right to examine the two Camorri after the Falconer’s mutilation. I never would have known what she’d discovered if I hadn’t been there in person for Jean Tannen’s interrogation. We took him in Tal Verrar, months before the Falconer’s friends were allowed to toy with them. Only Patience, Temperance, and myself have known what Tannen told us. That’s how the secret was kept.

  Lamor Acanthus returned! The matter is so huge, I can scarcely begin to ponder it. This question belongs to us all! I’ll break it wide open in the Sky Chamber!

  NO! The old man felt beads of sweat sliding down his cheeks and brow. The intensity of their communication was far beyond the usual light touch of mind-speech. Patience and Temperance have too much support in the chamber. Providence will take their side in any argument. You know as well as I that the Falconer’s removal leaves you short of commanding Speakers. Your followers are dedicated, but your numbers are too few to broach this matter without preparation.

  If Lamor Acanthus removed his spirit into another body, even an ungifted body, then he achieved something no other mage in history ever has.

  In disgrace and disaster!

  Yes. All the more reason we must examine him collectively, research his processes exhaustively. The mind and power of one man were not enough to overcome the difficulties. But what could the minds and powers of a hundred magi do? Or all of us, all four hundred? That’s how this MUST be approached!

  I agree with you. I owe Patience so much; do you think I’d turn on her for anything less than a truly existential question? Please heed me, Archedama. If you bring this before the Sky Chamber without preparation it will not go well. You must attack from a position of real strength. And to do that … I daresay that we must take unprecedented measures.

  Surely you can’t be suggesting—

  Never. No blood must be shed, at least not without provocation. But you must assert force. You must … take control of Patience and some of her supporters, for a little while. They count on the balance of power being overwhelmingly in their favor. If you demonstrate that it is otherwise, you can then introduce the question into a genuinely receptive environment. Only that can guarantee the honest discussion this situation demands.

  What you suggest could still be construed as a coup.

  Only a little one. The old man smiled wryly, and passed the sensation on in his thoughts. And only for a little while. Our very future is at stake. If we let the five-year game play itself out, let Patience and her supporters stay distracted, then … then with my guidance you can move instantly, decisively. The very night it ends. If we take the other arch-magi into custody, we demonstrate power. If we then release them unharmed, we demonstrate good intentions. Then, and only then, do I believe the circumstances will be right for us to confront the mess that Patience has made, and the secrets she’s unearthed.

  The night of the election, then.

  Yes. The night of the election.

  If you really can serve as our eyes, I promise you I’ll find capable hands to do the work.

  Archedama Foresight was gone from his mind without a further sentiment, as was her way. Relieved, he rubbed his hands together to calm their shaking.

  It was done, then. It was as it must be, and for the good of all his kind, he reminded himself. He’d had a long and comfortable life on account of his rings. Surely if anyone could bear the strain and the burden of what was to come, it was him.

  The air of the silent room suddenly seemed to chill against his skin. Coldmarrow decided that he needed a drink very, very badly.

  INTERLUDE

  AN INCONVENIENT PATRON

  1

  “JOVANNO,” SAID LOCKE. “Did you—”

  “It was me,” said Jenora, hoarsely. “He tried … he tried …”

  “He tried to tear her gods-damned clothes off,” said Jean, putting his arms around Jenora. “He was on the ground before I got here.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him, but … he’s drunk,” said Jenora. “He put his hands on my neck. He was choking me.…”

  Locke crouched warily over Boulidazi and slid the baron’s knife from its sheath. The heaving, bleeding man made no effort to stop him. Locke had seen bloody lung-cuts before, from duels at Capa Barsavi’s court. This was near-certain death, but it wouldn’t be quick. Boulidazi could have the strength to do them real harm for some time yet. So why wasn’t he fighting back now? His gaze was distant, his pupils unnaturally wide. Blood bubbled around the makeshift weapon still jutting from his chest, and this seemed to be causing him startled bemusement, not mortal panic.

  “He’s not just drunk,” said Locke. “It must be whatever you gave him.”

  “Shit,” said Sabetha, slumping against the door. “This is all my fault.”

  “The hell are you talking about?” said Jean.

  “Boulidazi’s drink,” said Calo. “We put something in it. To keep him away from … Verena and Lucaza.”

  “Shit,” repeated Sabetha, and the look on her face was too much for Locke to bear.

  “Here now,” he said, “half this gods-damned company has been drunk for weeks. The twins have been out of their minds on anything that comes in a bottle or a cask. When did they ever try to rape anyone?” Locke jabbed a finger at Boulidazi. “This is his fucking fault, nobody else’s!”

  “He’s right,” said Calo, setting a hand on Jenora’s wrist. “You did a Camorri thing. You did the right thing.”

  “The right thing?” Jenora brushed Calo off and took Jean’s hands. “I’ve hung myself. I’ve spilled noble blood.”

  “It’s not murder yet,” said Galdo.

  “It doesn’t matter if he lives or dies,” said Jenora. “They’ll kill me for this. They’ll kill as many of us as they can, but me for sure.”

  “It was clear self-defense,” growled Jean. “We’ll get a dozen witnesses. We’ll get the whole damn company; we’ll rehearse the story perfectly—”

  “And they’ll kill her,” said Sabetha. “She’s right. It won’t matter if we have a hundred witnesses, Jovanno. She’s a nightskin commoner and we’re foreign players, and now we’re all party to wiping out the last heir of an Esparan noble house. If we get caught they’ll grind us into paste and plow us into the fields.”

  “As my brother pointed out,” said Galdo, “we don’t have a corpse yet.”

>   “Yes we do,” said Locke quietly. His hands moved with a decisive steadiness that surprised his head. He removed Boulidazi’s dirty waist sash and gagged the baron with it. The wounded man struggled for air, but still didn’t seem to grasp what was happening to him.

  “Gods, what are you doing?” said Jenora.

  “What’s required,” said Locke, coldly exhilarated as his oldest reflexes, his Camorri instincts, shoved aside his muddled feelings of forbearance and pity. “If he breathes a word of this to anyone we’re doomed.”

  “Oh, gods,” whispered Jenora.

  “I’ll be happy to do it,” said Jean.

  “No,” said Locke. He’d demanded this necessity; Chains would expect him to not pass the burden. His hands trembled as he unbuckled the baron’s thin leather belt and wound it around his hands. Then the thought of Jean, Sabetha, and the Sanzas dangling from an Esparan gibbet flashed into his mind, and his hands were as steady as temple stones. He slipped the belt over Boulidazi’s neck.

  “Wait!” said Sabetha. She knelt in front of Boulidazi, who must now look tragically ridiculous, Locke realized, with the shears buried in his chest, his own sash gagging him, and a slender teenager applying a belt to his windpipe. “You can’t crimp his neck.”

  “Watch me,” said Locke through gritted teeth.

  “A man can be stabbed for a lot of reasons,” said Sabetha. “But if he’s pricked and strangled, it won’t look accidental.”

  Her movements were tender as she grasped the shears. Her eyes were pitiless as the night ocean.

  “Just hold him for me,” she whispered.

  Locke unwound his hands from the belt and grabbed Boulidazi by his thick upper arms. Sabetha gave Jenora’s shears a hard shove, upward and inward. Boulidazi groaned and jerked in Locke’s arms, but without real force. Even at the moment of his death, he was locked away from the reality of it.

  Boulidazi slumped, his legs jerking more and more feebly until at last he was still. Sabetha settled back on her knees, exhaled unsteadily, and held out her blood-slick right hand as though unsure how to clean it. Locke loosened the baron’s sash and passed it to her, then eased Boulidazi’s dead weight to the ground. If they could handle him carefully, Locke thought they could keep most of the blood within him, or at least upon him.