Red Seas Under Red Skies (26 page)

“I presume this river is a closed circuit,” said Jean.

“A meandering one, but yes.”

“Then, ah…forgive me, but where exactly are you taking us?”

“All in good time,” said Stragos.

“Speaking of where you're taking us,” said Locke, “would you care to return to our earlier subject? One of your guards must have struck me on the head; I thought I heard you say that you wanted us to go to sea.”

“So I do. And so you shall.”

“To what
possible
end?”

“Are you familiar,” said Stragos, “with the story of the Free Armada of the Ghostwind Isles?”

“Vaguely,” said Locke.”

“The pirate uprising on the Sea of Brass,” mused Jean. “Six or seven years ago. It was put down.”

“
I
put it down,” said the archon. “Seven years ago, those damn fools down in the Ghostwinds got it into their heads to make a bid for power. Claimed to have the right to levy taxes on shipping on the Sea of Brass, if by taxes you mean boarding and plundering anything with a hull. They had a dozen fit vessels, and a dozen more-or-less fit crews.”

“Bonaire,” said Jean. “That was the captain they all followed, wasn't it? Laurella Bonaire?”

“It was,” said Stragos. “Bonaire and her
Basilisk;
she was one of my officers, and that was one of my ships, before she turned her coat.”

“And you such a pleasant, unassuming fellow to work for,” said Locke.

“That squadron of brigands hit Nicora and Vel Virazzo and just about every little village on the nearby coast; they took ships in sight of this palace and hauled sail for the horizon when my galleys went out to meet them. It was the greatest aggravation this city had faced since the war against Camorr, in my predecessor's time.”

“I don't recall it lasting long,” said Jean.

“Half a year, perhaps. That declaration was their downfall; freebooters can run and skulk well enough, but when you make declarations you usually end up in battle to uphold them. Pirates are no match for real naval men and women when it's line against line on the open sea. We hammered them just off Nicora, sank half their fleet, and sent the rest pissing their breeches all the way back to the Ghostwinds. Bonaire wound up in a crow's cage dangling over the Midden Deep. After she watched all of her crew go in, I cut the rope that held her up myself.”

Locke and Jean said nothing. There was a faint watery creak as Stragos adjusted the course of their boat. Another bend in the artificial river was looming ahead.

“Now, that little demonstration,” the archon continued, “made piracy a fairly unpopular trade on the Sea of Brass. It's been a good time for honest merchants since then; of course there are still pirates in the Ghostwinds, but they don't come within three hundred miles of Tal Verrar, nor anywhere near Nicora or the coast. My navy hasn't had anything more serious than customs incidents and plague ships to deal with for nigh on three or four years. A quiet time…a prosperous time.”

“Isn't it your job to provide just that?” said Jean.

“You seem a well-read man, Tannen. Surely, your readings must have taught you that when men and women of arms have bled to secure a time of peace, the very people who most benefit from that peace are also the most likely to forget the bleeding.”

“The Priori,” said Locke. “That victory made them nervous, didn't it? People like victories. That's what makes generals popular…and dictators.”

“Astute, Lamora. Just as it was in the interests of the merchant councils to send me out to deliver them from piracy,” said Stragos, “it was in their interest to wring my navy dry soon afterward. Dividends of peace…they paid off half the ships, put them up in ordinary, loosed a few hundred trained sailors from the muster rolls, and let the merchants snap them up. The taxes of Tal Verrar paid to train them, and the Priori and their partners were happy to steal them. So it was, and so it is, with the Sea of Brass at peace, the Marrows squabbling, Lashain without a navy and Karthain far beyond the need to even consider one. This corner of the world is calm.”

“If you and the Priori are so very unhappy with one another, why don't they just run you out of funds completely?” Locke settled back against his corner of the boat and let his left hand hang far over the gunwale, trailing in the warm water.

“I'm sure they would if they could,” said Stragos. “But the charter of the city guarantees me a certain minimal budget, from general revenues. Though every finnicker and comptroller in the city is one of
theirs
, and they contrive some damned elaborate lies to trim even that. My own ledger-folk have their hands full chasing after them. But it's discretionary funds they won't cut loose. In a time of need they could swell my forces with gold and supplies at a moment's notice. In a time of peace, they begrudge me every last centira. They have forgotten why the archonate was instituted in the first place.”

“It does occur to me,” said Locke, “that your predecessor was supposed to sort of…
dissolve
the office when Camorr agreed to stop kicking your ass.”

“A standing force is the only professional force, Lamora. There must be a continuity of experience and training in the ranks; a worthwhile army or navy cannot simply be conjured out of nothing. Tal Verrar might not have the luxury of three or four years to build a defense when the next crisis comes along. And the Priori, the ones who prattle the loudest about ‘opposing dictatorship' and ‘civic guarantees,' would be the first to slip away like rats, loaded down with their fortunes, to take ship for whatever corner of the world would give them refuge. They would never stand or die with the city. And so the enmity between us is more than personal, for my part.”

“While I've known too many grand merchants to dispute your general idea of their character,” said Locke, “I've had a sudden sharp realization about where this conversation has been going.”

“As have I,” said Jean, clearing his throat. “Seems to me that with your power on the wane, this would be a terribly
convenient
time for new trouble to surface somewhere out on the Sea of Brass, wouldn't it?”

“Very good,” said Stragos. “Seven years ago, the pirates of the Ghostwinds rose up and gave the people of Tal Verrar reason to be glad of the navy I command. It
would
be convenient if they might be convinced to trouble us once again…and be crushed once again.”

“Send us out to sea to find an excuse for you, that's what you said,” said Locke. “Send
us
out to
sea
. Has your brain swelled against the inside of your skull? How the screaming fucking hell do you expect the two of us to raise a bloody pirate armada in a place we've never been and convince it to come merrily
die
at the hands of the navy that bent it over the table and fucked it in the ass last time?”

“You convinced the nobles of Camorr to throw away a fortune on your schemes,” said Stragos without a hint of anger. “They love their money. Yet you shook it out of them like ripe fruit from a tree. You outwitted a Bondsmage. You outwitted Capa Barsavi to his very face. You evaded the trap that caught your Capa Barsavi and his entire court.”

“Only some of us,” whispered Locke. “Only some of us got away, asshole.”

“I need more than agents. I need
provocateurs
. You two fell into my hands at an ideal time. Your task, your mission, will be to raise hell on the Sea of Brass. I want ships sacked from here to Nicora. I want the Priori pounding on my door, pleading with me to take more gold, more ships, more responsibility. I want commerce south of Tal Verrar to set full sail and run for port. I want underwriters soiling their breeches. I know I might not get all that, but by the gods, I'll take whatever you can give me. Raise me a pirate scare the likes of which we haven't had in years.”

“You are
cracked
,” said Jean.

“We can rob nobles. We can do second-story work. We can slide down chimneys and slip locks and rob coaches and break vaults and do a fine spread of card tricks,” said Locke. “I could cut your balls off, if you had any, and replace them with marbles, and you wouldn't notice for a week. But I hate to tell you that the one class of criminal we really haven't associated with,
ever
, is fucking pirates!”

“We're at a bit of a loss when it comes to the particulars of making their acquaintance,” added Jean.

“In this, as in so much, I'm well ahead of you,” said Stragos. “You should have no trouble making the acquaintance of the Ghostwind pirates, because you yourselves will
become
perfectly respectable pirates. Captain and first mate of a pirate sloop, as a matter of fact.”

3

“YOU ARE
beyond mad,” said Locke after several moments of silent, furious thought. “Full-on barking madness is a state of rational bliss to which you may not aspire. Men living in gutters and drinking their own piss would shun your company.
You
are a prancing lunatic.”

“That's not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from a man who genuinely wants his antidote.”

“Well, what a magnificent choice you've given us—death by slow poison or death by insane misadventure!”

“Come now,” said Stragos. “That's also not the sort of thing I'd expect to hear from a man with your proven ability for slipping out of extremely complicated situations.”

“I'm getting a bit annoyed,” said Locke, “with those who praise our previous escapades as an excuse for forcing us into even riskier ones. Look, if you want us to run a job, give us one within our field of experience. Isn't it broad enough for you? All we're saying is that we don't know the first bloody thing about wind, weather, ships, pirates, the Sea of Brass, the Ghostwind Isles, sails, ropes, er…weather, ships…”

“Our sole experience with ships,” said Jean, “consists of getting on, getting seasick, and getting off.”

“I'd thought of that,” said Stragos. “The captain of a criminal crew must have, above all other things, charisma. Leadership. A sense of decision. Rogues must be ruled. I believe you can do that, Lamora…by faking it, if necessary. That makes you the best possible choice in some respects. You can
fake
confidence when a sincere man might be inclined to panic. And your friend Jean can enforce your leadership; a good infighter is someone to be respected on a ship.”

“Sure, great,” said Locke. “I'm charming; Jean's tough. That just leaves all the other things I named—”

“As for the nautical arts, I will provide you with an experienced sailing master. A man who can train you in the essentials and make the proper decisions for you once you're at sea, all the while pretending the orders come from you. Don't you see? All I'm doing is asking you to play a role; he'll provide the knowledge to make that role convincing.”

“Sweet Venaportha,” said Locke. “You
really
intend for us to go out there, and you
genuinely
wish us to succeed?”

“Absolutely,” said Stragos.

“And the poison,” said Jean, “you'll just put enough antidote in our hands to allow us to roam the Sea of Brass, as we will?”

“Hardly. You'll need to call at Tal Verrar once every two months. My alchemist tells me that sixty-two to sixty-five days is really as far as you should push it.”

“Now, wait just a damn minute,” said Locke. “It's not enough that we'll be clueless sailors masquerading as hardened pirates, trusting another man to make us look competent. Or that we're going to be out risking gods know what at sea, with our plans for Requin postponed. Now you expect us to be tied to Mother's apron strings every two months?”

“It's two or three weeks to the Ghostwinds, and the same time back. You'll have ample time to do your business each trip, for however many months it takes. How closely you wish to shave your schedule is, of course, your own concern. Surely you see that it has to be this way.”

“No,” Locke laughed, “frankly, I don't!”

“I'll want progress reports. I may have new orders and information for you. You may have new requests or suggestions. It makes a great deal of sense to stay in regular contact.”

“And what if we chance across one of those patches of…damn, Jean, what are they called? No wind whatsoever?”

“Doldrums,” said Jean.

“Exactly,” said Locke. “Even
we
know that you can't presume a constant speed with wind and sails; you get what the gods send you. We could be stuck on a flat ocean fifty miles from Tal Verrar, on day sixty-three, dying for no reason at all.”

“Remotely possible, but unlikely. I'm well aware that there's a great element of risk in the task I'm handing you; the possibility of a vast return compels me to play the odds. Now…speak no more of this for the time being. Here's what I've brought you out to see.”

There was a golden ripple on the black water ahead, and faint golden lines that seemed to sway in the air above it. As they drew closer, Locke saw that a wide, dark shape covered the artificial river completely, from one bank to the other. A building of some sort…and the golden lines appeared to be cracks in curtains that hung down to the water. The boat reached this barrier and pushed through with little trouble; Locke shoved heavy damp canvas away from his face, and as it fell aside the boat burst into broad daylight.

They were inside a walled and roofed garden, at least forty feet high, filled with willow, witchwood, olive, citrus, and amberthorn trees. Black, brown, and gray trunks stood in ranks beside one another, their vine-tangled branches reaching up in vast constellations of bright leaves that entwined above the river like a roof beneath the roof.

As for the roof itself, it was scintillant, sky blue and bright as noon, with wisps of white clouds drifting past half-visible between the branches. The sun burned painfully bright on Locke's right as he turned around to stare straight ahead, and it sent rays of golden light down through the silhouetted leaves…though surely it was still the middle of the night outside.