by Scott Lynch
“I wonder,” said Locke, “don’t they ever make wine-colored wine in other cities?” He stared down into his own glass, which, like the fingers holding it, was beginning to blur around the edges.
“Some things are much more interesting when alchemists get their hands on them,” said Chains. “Your head, for example. Black sherry is renowned for kicking like a mule.”
“Yesh, renowned,” said Locke, grinning stupidly. His belly was warm, his head seemed not to weigh an ounce, and his intentions were disconnected from his actual movements by a heartbeat interval. He was aware that, if not already drunk, he was headed for it like a dart thrown at a wall.
“Now, Locke,” said Chains, his voice seeming to come from a distance, “I’ve a few things to discuss with these three. Perhaps you’d like to get to bed early tonight.”
A sharp pang pierced the bubble of warm contentment that had all but swallowed him. Go to bed early? Leave the company of Sabetha, whose blurry loveliness he was fixating on, barely managing to grudge himself the time required to blink every now and then?
“Um,” he said. “Wha?”
“It wasn’t a request, Locke,” said Chains gently. “You’ve a busy evening tomorrow, I can assure you, and you need all the sleep you can get.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’ll see.” Chains rose, moved around the table, and carefully took Locke’s empty glass from his hand. Locke looked down in surprise, having forgotten that he’d been holding it. “Off you go.”
A tiny part of Locke’s mind, the cold wariness that had been his sentry in Shades’ Hill, realized Chains had long planned to send him, happily befuddled, to an early rest. Even through his wine-induced haze, that stung. He’d been feeling more and more at home, but no sooner had Sabetha walked through the door than it was Streets and Windows all over again, and he was packed off to some dark corner without the privileges enjoyed by the older children.
“I,” he muttered, taking his eyes off Sabetha for the first time in several minutes, but directing his voice at her. “I will. But … I’m g-glad you’re here.” He felt the urge to say something else, something weighty and witty that would turn that beautiful head of hers and fix her attention to him, a mirror of his own. But even drunk he knew he was more likely to pull rubies out of his ass than he was to speak as older people spoke, with words that were somehow careful and powerful and right. “Sabetha,” he half mumbled.
“Thanks,” she said, looking at the table.
“I mean, I knew … you knew I meant you, Sabetha … sorry. I just … I’m glad you’re not drowned, you know.”
More than anything, at that moment, he just wanted to hear her say his name, call him anything but “him” or “the Lamora Boy.” Acknowledge his existence … their partnership in Chains’ gang … gods, he would exile himself to bed early every night if he could just hear his name come out from between those thin lips of hers.
“Good night,” she said.
4
LOCKE WOKE the next day feeling as though the contents of his skull had been popped out and replaced upside-down.
“Here,” said one of the Sanzas, who happened to be sitting next to Locke’s cot with a book on his lap. The Sanza (Locke, muddled as he was, could not quite identify which one) passed over a wooden cup of water. It was lukewarm but clean, and Locke gulped it down without delicacy, marveling at how parched he felt.
“What time is it?” he croaked when he was finished.
“Must be past noon.”
“Noon? But … my chores …”
“No real work today.” The Sanza stretched and yawned. “No arithmetic. No Catch-the-Duke. No languages. No dancing.”
“No sitting the steps,” yelled the other Sanza from the next room. “No swordplay. No knots and ropes. No coins.”
“No music,” said the Sanza with the book. “No manners. No history. No bloody heraldry.”
“What are we doing, then?”
“Calo and I are to make sure you can stand up straight,” said the Sanza with the book. “Nail you to a plank if we have to.”
“And when that’s done, you’re to do all the dishes.”
“Sabetha …” Locke rubbed his eyes and rolled off his cot. “She’s really one of us?”
“Course she is,” said the Sanza with the book.
“Is she … here right now?”
“Nah. Out with Chains. Looking into things for tonight.”
“What’s tonight?”
“Dunno. All’s we know is the afternoon; and the afternoon, far as you’re concerned, is dishes.”
5
THOUGH ENERGETIC enough when set a task, Calo and Galdo were virtuosos of laziness when left to their own devices. Between subtle interference and overt clowning, they managed to stretch the half hour Locke would ordinarily have needed to tend the dishes into nearly three hours. By the time the secret door to the temple above banged shut behind the returning Father Chains, Locke’s fingers were wrinkled and bleached from the alchemical polish he’d been using on the silver.
“Ah,” said Chains. “Good, good. You look more or less among the living. Feeling spry?”
“I suppose,” said Locke.
“We’ve a job tonight. Housebreaking. Windows work, and most of it on your little shoulders.” Chains patted his broad belly and smirked. “I parted ways with climbing and scampering some time ago.”
“Windows work?” said Locke, the drudgery of his long afternoon in the kitchen instantly forgotten. “I … I’d love to. But I thought you, um, didn’t do that sort of thing.”
“For its own sake, not usually. But I need to find some things out about you, Locke.”
“Oh, good.” Locke felt his excitement cool slightly. “Another test. When do they stop?”
“When you’re buried, my boy.” Chains knelt and gave Locke a friendly squeeze on the back of his neck. “When you’re under the dirt and colder than a fish’s tits. That’s when it stops. Now listen.
“I’ve got a tip from a friend at Meraggio’s.” Chains bustled about the kitchen, snatching up chalk and one of the slates the children used for their lessons. He sketched on it rapidly. “Seems a certain olive merchant is looking to marry his useless son to a noble wife. To sweeten the deal sufficiently, he’ll need to put his family splendids back into circulation.”
“What’s that mean?” said Locke.
“Means he needs to sell his jewels and things,” said Calo.
“Sharp lad. About an hour ago, the merchant’s man left the countinghouse with a lot of nice old things in a bag. He’s staying at a townhouse in the Razona; just him and two guards. The old man and a bigger retinue are coming in from his estate tomorrow. So tonight we have a bit of an opportunity.”
“Why us?” Locke’s excitement was tempered with genuine puzzlement. “If he’s only got two guards, anyone who wanted to could go in there with a gang.”
“Never in life,” said Chains, chuckling. “Barsavi won’t have it. The Razona’s a quiet district where doors don’t get kicked in. That’s the Peace. Anybody breaks it, they’re liable to have their precious bits cut off and stitched to their eyeballs. So instead of sending in brutes through the door, we send a quiet type through the window.”
Chains turned the slate toward Calo, Galdo, and Locke. The top half was taken up by a rough diagram of houses and their surrounding streets and alleys. Beneath that was a sketch of a necklace, with large ovoid shapes dangling from a thick central collar. Chains tapped one of his fingers against this sketch.
“One piece,” he said. “That’s all we’re after. One from twenty or so, and they won’t have time to put up much of a fuss about it. A gold necklace with nine hanging emeralds. Pop out the stones, send them nine different directions, and melt down the gold. Untraceable profit.”
“How do we do it?” asked Locke.
“Well, that’s half the fun.” Chains scratched at his chin. “You said yourself, it’s a test. You’ll be working with Sabetha, si
nce she’s had more experience at this sort of thing. Calo and Galdo will be your top-eyes; that is, watching the area to cover your ass. I’ll be on the ground nearby, but I won’t be directly involved. My crooked little wonders get to sort the rest out for themselves.”
Locke’s heart raced. Test or not, a chance to work together with Sabetha on something exciting? The gods loved him!
“Where is she now?”
“Here.” Chains pointed to a square sketched on the upper portion of the slate. “On the Via Selaine. Four-story house with a rooftop garden. That’s our target. She’ll be nearby until dark; at first moonrise she’ll meet you in this alley.” Chains ran his finger up and down a set of chalk lines, blurring them. “Once the Sanzas are in position to keep an eye on the street, the rest is up to you and Sabetha.”
“That’s it, then?”
“That’s it. And remember, I want one emerald necklace. I don’t need two, or the deed to the townhouse, or the bloody crown jewels of Camorr. Tonight’s definitely a night for you to underachieve.”
6
FULL CAMORRI night at last, after a twilight spent nervously fidgeting in an alley, waiting for Sabetha to make contact. Now Locke was with her, up on the roof of the house next door to their target, crouched among the old wooden frames and empty pots of a long-untended garden. It was just past second moonrise, and the wide-open sky was on fire with stars, ten thousand flickering white eyes staring down at Locke, as though eager to see him get to work.
Three feet away, a low dark shape against the stone parapet, lay Sabetha. Her only words to him at their meeting had been “Shut up, keep close, and stay quiet.” He’d done that, following her up the alley wall of the house they now sat upon, using windowsills and deep decorative carvings to haul himself up with little effort. Since then his urge to speak with her had been overruled by his terror of annoying her, and so he fancied that he’d done a fine imitation of a corpse from the moment they’d arrived. When she finally did speak, her soft voice actually startled him.
“I think they’ve gone to sleep at last.”
“Wh-what? Who?”
“The three old women who live here.” Sabetha set her head against the stones of the rooftop and listened for several moments. “They sleep on the second floor, but it never hurts to be careful.”
“Oh. Of course.”
“Never worked a roof before. Isn’t that the case, boy?” Sabetha moved slightly, and so quietly that Locke couldn’t hear a single ruffle of her dark tunic and trousers. She peeked over the parapet for no more than the span of a few heartbeats, then crouched back down.
“I, um, no. Not like this.”
“Well, think you can confine yourself to stealing just what we’ve been sent for? Or should I have the yellowjackets rouse out bucket-lines in case you burn the Razona down?”
“I—I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be careful.”
“Whatever I say?” Her face was in silvery-gray shadow, but her eyes caught the starlight as she turned to him, so he could see them clearly. “You mean it?”
“Oh, yes.” Locke nodded several times. “On my heart. Come hell or Eldren-fire.”
“Good. You might not fuck this up, then.” She gestured toward the parapet. “Move slow. Raise up just high enough to get your eyes over the edge. Take a good look.”
Locke peeked out over the southern parapet of the townhouse; their target house with its thick rooftop garden was to his right, and four stories below him was a clean stretch of cobbled road washed with moonlight. The Razona seemed a gentle, quiet place—no drunks sprawled in gutters, no tavern doors banging constantly open and closed, no yellowjackets moving in squads with truncheons drawn and shields out. Dozens of alchemical globes burned at street level, behind windows and above doors, like bunches of fiery fruit. Only the alleys and rooftops seemed wrapped in anything like real darkness.
“You see Calo and Galdo?” asked Sabetha.
“No.”
“Good. That means they’re where they should be. If something goes wrong—if a squad of yellowjackets shows up in the street, let’s say—those two will start hollering ‘The master wants more wine, the master wants more wine.’ ”
“What then?”
“They run, and we do likewise.” Sabetha crawled over beside him, and Locke felt his breath catch in his throat. Her next words were spoken into his ear. “First rule of roof work is, know how you’re getting down. Do you?”
“Um, same way we came?”
“Too slow. Too risky. Climbing down at speed is more dangerous than going up, especially at night.” She pointed to a thin gray line in the middle of the roof, a line that Locke’s eyes followed to a mess of pots and broken trellises. “I anchored that line when I came up. Demisilk, should get us down to five feet off the ground. If we need to run, throw it over the edge, slide down as fast as you can, and leave it behind. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Now, look across here.” She nudged his head up above the parapet again, and pointed at an alley across the street. “That’s the escape route. You’ll have to cross the road, but one of the Sanzas should be in cover there watching for you. Chains is another block or two past that. If it all goes to hell, find a Sanza. Understand?”
“Yeah. But what if we don’t get caught?”
“Same plan, boy. We just do it slower. Ready?”
“Sure. Whenever you say. How do we, um, get across?”
“Fire plank.” Sabetha crawled toward the parapet facing their target house, beckoning for him to follow. She gently tapped a long wooden board that rested snug against the stone wall. “In case the place burns up beneath you, you swing it across to the neighbors and hope they like you.”
Working quietly and slowly, the two children lifted the fifteen-foot plank to the edge of the parapet and swiveled it out over the alley, Sabetha guiding it while Locke put his full weight on the inner edge. He felt uneasily like a catapult stone about to fly if the other end should fall, but after a few chancy moments Sabetha had the far end of the plank settled on the parapet of their target house. She hopped gracefully atop it, then got down on her hands and knees.
“One at a time,” she whispered. “Stay low and don’t hurry.”
Across she went, while Locke’s heart raced with the familiar excitement of a crime about to get under way. The farm-field smell of the Hangman’s Wind filled the air, and a warm breeze caught at Locke’s hair. To the northeast loomed the impossibly tall shadows of the Five Towers, with their crowns of silver and gold lanterns, warm artificial constellations mingling with the cold and real stars.
Now came Locke’s turn. The board would have been unnervingly narrow for an adult, but someone Locke’s size could turn around on it without bothering to stand up. He went over with ease, rolled off the edge of the plank, and crouched amid the wet smells of a living garden. Dark boughs of leaves rustled above him, and he almost jumped when Sabetha reached out of the shadows and grabbed him by the shoulder.
“No noise,” she whispered. “I’ll go in after the necklace. You watch the roof. Make sure the plank stays where we need it.”
“Wh-what if something happens?”
“Pound the floor three times. If something happens that you can see before I do, won’t be anything for us to do but flee anyway. Don’t ever use my name if you call out.”
“I won’t. Good … um, good luck—”
But she was already gone, and a moment later he heard a faint set of clicks. Somewhere in the garden, Sabetha was picking a lock. A moment later she had it, and the hinges of a door creaked ever so faintly.
Locke stood guard at the plank for many long minutes, constantly glancing around, although he admitted to himself that a dozen grown men could have been hiding in the darkness of the vines and leaves around him. Occasionally he popped above the parapet and glanced back across the narrow bridge. The other rooftop remained reassuringly empty.
Locke was just settling back down from his fourth or fifth peek
across the way when he heard a commotion beneath his feet. He knelt down and placed one ear against the warm stone; it was a murmur. One person talking, then another. A rising chorus of adult voices. Then the shouting began.
“Oh, shit,” Locke whispered.
There was a series of thumps from the direction Sabetha had gone, then the loud bang of a door being thrown open. She flew out of the shadows at him, grabbed him by the arms, and heaved him onto the plank.
“Go, go, go,” she said, breathlessly. “Fast as you can.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Just go, gods damn it! I’ll steady the plank.”
Locke scuttled across the fifteen feet to safety as fast as he’d ever moved in his life, so fast that he tumbled off the parapet on arrival and tucked into an ungainly roll to avoid landing teeth-first. He popped up, head spinning, and whirled back toward Sabetha.
“Come on,” he cried. “Come on!”
“The rope,” she hissed. “Get down the fucking rope!”
“I’ll s-steady the plank for you now.” Locke clamped his hands onto it, gritted his teeth, and braced himself, knowing with some part of his mind just how ridiculous a display of such feeble strength must look. Why was she not coming?
“THE ROPE,” she yelled. “GO!”
Locke looked up just in time to see tall dark shapes burst out of the garden behind her. Adults. Their arms were reaching for her, but she wasn’t trying to escape; she wasn’t even turning toward them. Instead her hands were on the plank, and she was—
“No,” Locke screamed. “NO!”
Sabetha was seized from behind and hoisted into the air, but as she went up she managed to swivel her end of the plank just off the parapet and push it into empty space. Locke felt the terrible sensation of that weight tipping and plummeting into the alley, far too much for him to hold back. His end of the plank leapt up and cracked against his chin, knocking him backward, and as he was landing on his posterior he heard the echoing crash of the plank hitting the ground four stories below.
