Red Seas Under Red Skies (20 page)

Locke's stomach revolted against the small breakfast he'd eaten at the Villa Candessa, and he bit down hard on one of his curled fingers, using the pain to assert some self-control. When he turned back to Madam Durenna, his face was once again placid.

“Well,” she said, waving the four wooden sticks at him and Jean, “this is a tolerable salve for the wounds I still bear from our last meeting. But when shall we have the pleasure of full redress?”

“It can't possibly come soon enough,” said Locke. “But if you'll excuse us for the evening, we've got some…political difficulties to discuss. And before we leave I'm going to dispose of my drink on the body of the man who's cost us two hundred solari.”

Madam Durenna waved airily, and was reloading her silver pipe from a leather pouch before Locke and Jean had taken two steps.

Locke's queasiness rose again as he approached the cage. The crowd was breaking up around him, trading marker sticks and enthusiastic babble. The last few paces around the cage, though, were already clear. The noise and movement in the room around them was keeping the wasps agitated. As Locke approached the cage, a pair leapt back into the air and hovered menacingly, beating loudly against the inner layer of mesh and following him along. Their black eyes seemed to stare right into his. He cringed despite himself.

He knelt as close to the young man's body as he could get, and in seconds half the free wasps in the enclosure were buzzing and batting against the mesh just a foot or two from his face. Locke threw the remaining half of his rum on the wasp-covered corpse. Behind him, there was an eruption of laughter.

“That's the spirit, friend,” came a slurred voice. “Clumsy son of a bitch cost me five hundred solari. Take a piss on him while you're down there!”

“Crooked Warden,” Locke muttered under his breath, speaking quickly. “A glass poured on the ground for a stranger without friends. Lord of gallants and fools, ease this man's passage to the Lady of the Long Silence. This was a hell of a way to die. Do this for me and I'll try not to ask for anything for a while. I really do mean that this time.”

Locke kissed the back of his left hand and stood up. With the blessing said, suddenly it seemed that he couldn't be far enough away from the cage.

“Where now?” asked Jean quietly.

“The hell away from these gods-damned bugs.”

5

THE SKY
was clear over the sea and roofed in by clouds to the east; a high pearlescent ceiling hung there like frozen smoke beneath the moons. A hard breeze was blowing past them as they trudged across the docks that fringed the inner side of the Great Gallery, whipping discarded papers and other bits of junk about their feet. A ship's bell echoed across the lapping silver water.

On their left, a dark Elderglass wall rose story after story like a looming cliff, crossed here and there by rickety stairs with faint lanterns to guide the way of those stumbling up and down them. At the top of those heights was the Night Market, and the edge of the vast roof that covered the tiers of the island down to the waves on its other side.

“Oh, fantastic,” said Jean when Locke had finished his recounting of what had transpired in Requin's office. “So now we've got Requin thinking that Stragos is out to get him. I've never helped precipitate a civil war before. This should be fun.”

“I didn't have much choice,” said Locke. “Can you think of any other convincing reasons for Stragos to take a personal interest in us? Without a good explanation, I was going out that window, that much was clear.”

“If only you'd landed on your head, you'd have nothing to fear but the bill for damaged cobblestones. Do you think Stragos needs to know that Requin's not as blind to his agents as he thought?”

“Oh, fuck the son of a bitch.”

“Didn't think so.”

“Besides, for all we know Stragos really is out to get Requin. They're certainly not friends, and trouble's brewing all over this damn city. On the assets side of the ledger,” said Locke, “I think Selendri can be sweet-talked, at least a little bit. And it seems that Requin really thinks of me as
his
.”

“Well, good on that. Do you think it's time to give him the chairs?”

“Yeah, the chairs…the chairs. Yes. Let's do it, before Stragos decides to push us around some more.”

“I'll have them taken out of storage and brought round in a cart, whenever you like.”

“Good. I'll deliver them later this week, then. You mind avoiding the Sinspire for a night or two?”

“Of course not. Any particular reason?”

“I just want to disappoint Durenna and Corvaleur for a bit. Until we're a little more secure with our situation, I'd really prefer not to waste another night losing money and getting drunk. The
bela paranella
trick might rouse suspicion if we pull it again.”

“If you put it that way, I can't say no. How about if I poke around in a few other places, and see if I can catch any whispers about the archon and the Priori? I think we might arm ourselves with a little more of this city's history.”

“Lovely. What the hell's this?”

They were not alone on the dockside; in addition to occasional strangers hurrying here and there on business, there were boatmen sleeping under cloaks beside their tied-up craft, and a fair number of drunks and derelicts curled up beneath any shelter they could claim. A pile of crates lay just a few paces to their left, and in its shadow sat a thin figure covered in layers of torn rags, near a tiny alchemical globe that shone a pale red. The figure clutched a small burlap sack and beckoned to them with one pale hand.

“Sirs, sirs!” The loud, croaking voice seemed to be a woman's. “For pity's sake, you fine gentlemen. For pity's sake, for Perelandro's sake. A coin, any coin, thin copper would do. Have pity, for Perelandro's sake.”

Locke's hand went to his purse, just inside his frock coat. Jean had taken his coat off and now carried it folded over his right arm; he seemed content to let Locke see to the evening's act of charity.

“For Perelandro's sake, madam, you may have more than just a centira.”

Temporarily distracted by the warm glow of his own affected gallantry, Locke was holding out three silver volani before the first little warning managed to register. The beggar would be happy to have one thin copper, and had a loud voice…why hadn't they heard her speaking to any of the strangers who'd passed by just ahead of them?

And why was she reaching out with the burlap sack rather than an open hand?

Jean was faster than he was, and with no more elegant way to get Locke to safety, he raised his left arm and gave Locke a hard shove. A crossbow bolt punched a neat dark hole in the burlap sack and hissed through the air between them; Locke felt it tug at his coattails as he fell sideways. He toppled over a smaller crate and landed clumsily on his back.

He sat up just in time to see Jean kick the beggar in the face. The woman's head snapped back, but she planted her hands on the ground and scissored her legs, sweeping Jean off his feet. As Jean hit the ground and tossed his folded coat away, the beggar drew her legs straight up, kicked them down, and seemed to fling herself forward in an arc. She was on her feet in a second, casting off her rags.

Ah, shit. She's a foot-boxer—a bloody
chassoneur
, Locke thought, stumbling to his feet. Jean hates that. Locke twitched his coat-sleeves, and a stiletto fell into each hand. Moving warily, he skipped across the stones toward Jean's attacker, who was kicking Jean in the ribs as the big man attempted to roll away. Locke was within three paces of the
chassoneur
when the slap of boot-leather against the ground warned of a presence close behind him. He raised the stiletto in his right hand as though to strike Jean's assailant, then ducked and whirled, lunging blindly to his rear with the left-hand blade.

Locke was instantly glad he'd ducked; something whirled past his head close enough to tear painfully at his hair. His new attacker was another “beggar,” a man close to his own stature, and he'd just missed a swing with a long iron chain that would have opened Locke's skull like an egg. The force of the man's attack helped carry him onto the point of Locke's stiletto, which plunged in up to the hilt just beneath the man's right armpit. The man gasped, and Locke pressed his advantage ruthlessly, bringing his other blade down overhand and burying it in the man's left clavicle.

Locke wrenched both of his blades as savagely as he could, and the man moaned. The chain slipped from his fingers and hit the stones with a clatter; a second later Locke worked his blades out of the man's body as though he were pulling skewers from meat and let the poor fellow slump to the ground. He raised his bloody stilettos, turned, and with a sudden burst of ill-advised self-confidence, charged Jean's assailant.

She kicked out from the hip, barely sparing him a glance. Her foot struck his sternum; it felt like walking into a brick wall. He stumbled back, and she took the opportunity to step away from Jean (who looked to have been rather pummeled) and advance on Locke.

Her rags were discarded. Locke saw that she was a young woman, probably younger than he was, wearing loose dark clothing and a thin, well-fashioned ribbed leather vest. She was Therin, relatively dark-skinned, with tightly braided black hair that circled her head like a crown. She had a poise that said she'd killed before.

No problem, thought Locke as he moved backward. So have I. That's when he tripped over the body of the man he'd just stabbed.

She took instant advantage of his misstep. Just as he regained his balance, she snapped out in an arc with her right leg. Her foot landed like a hammer against Locke's left forearm, and he swore as his stiletto flew from suddenly nerveless fingers. Incensed, he lunged with his right-hand blade.

Moving as deftly as Jean ever had, she grabbed his right wrist with her left hand, pulled him irresistibly forward, and slammed the heel of her right hand into his chin. His remaining stiletto whirled into the darkness like a man diving from a tall building, and suddenly the dark sky above him was replaced with looming gray stones. He made their acquaintance hard enough to rattle his teeth like dice in a cup.

She kicked him once to roll him over onto his back, then planted a foot on his chest to pin him down. She'd caught one of his blades, and he watched in a daze as she bent forward to put it to use. His hands were numb, traitorously slow, and he felt an unbearable itching sensation on his unprotected neck as his own stiletto dipped toward it.

Locke didn't hear Jean's hatchet sink into her back, but he saw its effect and guessed the cause. The woman jerked upright, arched backward, and let the stiletto slip. It clattered against the ground just beside Locke's face, and he flinched. His assailant sank down to her knees just beside him, breathing in swift shallow gasps, and then twisted away. He could see one of Jean's Wicked Sisters buried in a spreading dark stain on her lower back, just to the right of her spine.

Jean stepped over Locke, reached down, and yanked the hatchet from the woman's back. She gasped, fell forward, and was viciously yanked back upright by Jean, who stood behind her and placed the blade of his hatchet against her throat.

“Lo…Leo! Leocanto. Are you all right?”

“With this much pain,” Locke gasped, “I know I can't be dead.”

“Good enough.” Jean applied more force to the hatchet, which he was holding just behind its head, like a barber wielding a beard-scraper. “Start talking. I can help you die without further pain, or I can even help you live. You're no simple bandit. Who put you here?”

“My back,” sobbed the woman, her voice trembling and utterly without threat. “Please, please, it hurts.”

“It's supposed to. Who put you here? Who hired you?”

“Gold,” said Locke, coughing. “White iron. We can pay you. Double. Just give us a name.”

“Oh, gods, it hurts…”

Jean seized her by the hair with his free hand and pulled; she cried out and straightened up. Locke blinked as he saw what appeared to be a dark feathered shape burst out of her chest; the wet thud of the crossbow quarrel's impact didn't register until a split second later. Jean leapt back, dumbfounded, and dropped the woman to the ground. A moment later, he looked past Locke and gestured threateningly with his hatchet.

“You!”

“At your service, Master de Ferra.”

Locke craned his head back far enough to catch an upside-down glimpse of the woman who'd stolen them off the street and delivered them to the archon a few nights before. Her dark hair fluttered freely behind her in the breeze. She wore a tight black jacket over a gray waistcoat and a gray skirt, and held a discharged crossbow in her left hand. She was walking toward them at a leisurely pace, from the direction they'd come. Locke groaned and rolled over until she was right side up.

Beside him, the beggar-
chassoneur
gave one last wet cough and died.

“Gods
damn
it,” cried Jean, “I was about to get some answers from her!”

“No, you weren't,” said the archon's agent. “Take a look at her right hand.”

Locke, climbing shakily to his feet, and Jean both did so; a slender knife with a curved blade glistened there by the faint light of the moons and the few dockside lamps.

“I was assigned to watch over you two,” the woman said as she stepped up beside Locke, beaming contentedly.

“Fine fucking job,” said Jean, rubbing his ribs with his left hand.

“You seemed to be doing well enough until the end.” She looked down at the little knife and nodded. “Look, this knife has an extra groove right alongside the cutting edge. That usually means something nasty on the blade. She was buying time to slip it out and stick you with it.”

“I know what a groove along the blade means,” mumbled Jean petulantly. “Do you know who the hell these two work for?”