Red Seas Under Red Skies (3 page)

Down past floors of notables they went…past queens of Verrari commerce with their decorative young companions of both sexes on their arms like pets. Past men and women with purchased Lashani titles, staring across cards and wine decanters at lesser dons and doñas from Camorr; past Vadran shipmasters in tight black coats, with sea tans like masks over their sharp, pale features. Locke recognized at least two members of the Priori, the merchant council that theoretically ruled Tal Verrar. Deep pockets seemed to be the primary qualification for membership.

Dice fell and glasses clinked; celebrants laughed and coughed and cursed and sighed. Currents of smoke moved languidly in the warm air, carrying scents of perfume and wine, sweat and roast meats, and here and there the resiny hint of alchemical drugs.

Locke had seen genuine palaces and mansions before; the Sinspire, opulent as it was, was not so very much more handsome than the homes many of these people would be returning to when they finally ran out of night to play in. The real magic of the Sinspire was woven from its capricious exclusivity; deny something to enough people and sooner or later it will grow a mystique as thick as fog.

Nearly hidden at the rear of the first floor was a heavy wooden booth manned by several unusually large attendants. Luckily, there was no line. Locke set his box down on the countertop beneath the booth's only window, a bit too forcefully.

“All to my account.”

“My pleasure, Master Kosta,” said the chief attendant as he took the box. Leocanto Kosta, merchant speculator of Talisham, was well known in this kingdom of wine fumes and wagers. The attendant swiftly changed Locke's pile of wooden chits into a few marks on a ledger. In beating Durenna and Corvaleur, even minus his tip to the dealer, Locke's cut of the winnings came to nearly five hundred solari.

“I understand that congratulations are in order to the both of you, Master de Ferra,” said the attendant as Locke stepped back to let Jean approach the counter with his own box. Jerome de Ferra, also of Talisham, was Leocanto's boon companion. They were a pair of fictional peas in a pod.

Suddenly, Locke felt a hand fall onto his left shoulder. He turned warily and found himself facing a woman with curly dark hair, richly dressed in the same colors as the Sinspire attendants. One side of her face was sublimely beautiful—the other side was a leathery brown half-mask, wrinkled, as though it had been badly burned. When she smiled, the damaged side of her lips failed to move. It seemed to Locke as though a living woman was somehow struggling to emerge from within a rough clay sculpture.

Selendri, Requin's majordomo.

The hand that she had placed on his shoulder (her left, on the burned side) wasn't real. It was a solid brass simulacrum, and it gleamed dully in the lantern light as she withdrew it.

“The house congratulates you,” she said in her eerie, lisping voice, “for good manners as well as considerable fortitude, and wishes you and Master de Ferra to know that you would both be welcome on the sixth floor, should you choose to exercise the privilege.”

Locke's smile was quite genuine. “Many thanks, on behalf of myself and my partner,” he said with tipsy glibness. “The kind regard of the house is, of course, extremely flattering.”

She nodded noncommittally, then slipped away into the crowd as quickly as she'd come. Eyebrows went up appreciatively here and there—few of Requin's guests, to Locke's knowledge, were apprised of their increasing social status by Selendri herself.

“We're a commodity in demand, my dear Jerome,” he said as they made their way through the crowd toward the front doors.

“For the time being,” said Jean.

“Master de Ferra,” beamed the head doorman as they approached, “and Master Kosta. May I call for a carriage?”

“No need, thanks,” said Locke. “I'll fall over sideways if I don't flush my head with some night air. We'll walk.”

“Very good then, sir.”

With military precision, four attendants held the doors open for Locke and Jean to pass. The two thieves stepped carefully down a wide set of stone steps covered with a red velvet carpet. That carpet was thrown out and replaced each night. As a result, in Tal Verrar alone could one find armies of beggars routinely sleeping on piles of red velvet scraps.

The view was breathtaking; to their right, the whole crescent sweep of the island was visible beyond the silhouettes of other chance houses. There was relative darkness in the north, in contrast to the auralike glow of the Golden Steps. Beyond the city—to the south, west, and north—the Sea of Brass gleamed phosphorescent silver, lit by three moons in a cloudless sky. Here and there the sails of distant ships reached up from the quicksilver tableau, ghostly pale.

Locke could gaze downward to his left and see across the staggered rooftops of the island's five lower tiers, a vertigo-inducing view despite the solidity of the stones beneath his feet. All around him was the murmur of human pleasure and the clatter of horse-drawn carriages on cobbles; there were at least a dozen moving or waiting along the straight avenue atop the sixth tier. Above, the Sinspire reared up into the opalescent darkness with its alchemical lanterns bright, like a candle meant to draw the attentions of the gods.

“And now, my dear professional pessimist,” said Locke as they stepped away from the Sinspire and acquired relative privacy, “my worry-merchant, my tireless font of doubt and derision…what do you have to say to
that
?”

“Oh, very little, to be sure, Master Kosta. It's so hard to think, overawed as I am with the sublime genius of your plan.”

“That bears some vague resemblance to sarcasm.”

“Gods forfend,” said Jean. “You wound me! Your inexpressible criminal virtues have triumphed again, as inevitably as the tides come and go. I cast myself at your feet and beg for absolution. Yours is the genius that nourishes the heart of the world.”

“And now you're—”

“If only there was a leper handy,” interrupted Jean, “so you could lay your hands on and magically heal him.”

“Oh, you're just farting out your mouth because you're jealous.”

“It's possible,” said Jean. “Actually, we are substantially enriched, not caught, not dead, more famous, and welcome on the next floor up. I must admit that I was wrong to call it a silly scheme.”

“Really? Huh.” Locke reached under his coat lapels as he spoke. “Because I have to admit, it
was
a silly scheme. Damned irresponsible. One drink more and I would have been finished. I'm actually pretty bloody surprised we pulled it off.”

He fumbled beneath his coat for a second or two, then pulled out a little pad of wool about as wide and long as his thumb. A puff of dust was shaken from the wool when Locke slipped it into one of his outer pockets, and he wiped his hands vigorously on his sleeves as they walked along.

“Nearly lost is just another way to say finally won,” said Jean.

“Nonetheless, the liquor almost did me in. Next time I'm that optimistic about my own capacity, correct me with a hatchet to the skull.”

“I'll be glad to correct you with
two
.”

It was Madam Izmila Corvaleur who'd made the scheme possible. Madam Corvaleur, who'd first crossed paths with “Leocanto Kosta” at a gaming table a few weeks earlier, who had the reliable habit of eating with her fingers to annoy her opponents while she played cards.

Carousel Hazard really
couldn't
be cheated by any traditional means. None of Requin's attendants would stack a deck, not once in a hundred years, not even in exchange for a dukedom. Nor could any player alter the carousel, select one vial in favor of another, or serve a vial to anyone else. With all the usual means of introducing a foreign substance to another player guarded against, the only remaining possibility was for a player to do herself in by slowly, willingly taking in something subtle and unorthodox. Something delivered by a means beyond the ken of even a healthy paranoia.

Like a narcotic powder, dusted on the playing cards in minute quantities by Locke and Jean, then gradually passed around the table to a woman continually licking her fingers as she played.

Bela paranella
was a colorless, tasteless alchemical powder also known as “the night friend.” It was popular with rich people of a nervous disposition, who took it to ease themselves into deep, restful slumber. When mixed with alcohol,
bela paranella
was rapidly effective in tiny quantities; the two substances were as complementary as fire and dry parchment. It would have been widely used for criminal purposes, if not for the fact that it sold for twenty times its own weight in white iron.

“Gods, that woman had the constitution of a war galley,” said Locke. “She must have started getting some of the powder by the third or fourth hand…probably could've killed a pair of wild boars in heat with less.”

“At least we got what we wanted,” said Jean, removing his own powder reservoir from his coat. He considered it for a moment, shrugged, and slipped it in a pocket.

“We did indeed…and I saw him!” said Locke. “Requin. He was on the stairs, watching us for most of the hands in the middle game. We
must
have excited a personal interest.” The exciting ramifications of this helped clear some of the haze from Locke's thoughts. “Why else send Selendri herself to pat our backs?”

“Well, assume you're correct. So what now? Do you want to push on with it, like you mentioned, or do you want to take it slow? Maybe gamble around on the fifth and sixth floors for a few more weeks?”

“A few more weeks? To hell with that. We've been kicking around this gods-damned city for two years now; if we've finally cracked Requin's shell, I say we bloody well go for it.”

“You're going to suggest tomorrow night, aren't you?”

“His curiosity's piqued. Let's strike while the blade is fresh from the forge.”

“I suspect that drink has made you impulsive.”

“Drink makes me see funny; the gods made me impulsive.”

“You there,” came a voice from the street in front of them. “Hold it!”

Locke tensed. “I beg your pardon?”

A young, harried-looking Verrari man with long black hair was holding his hands out, palms facing toward Locke and Jean. A small, well-dressed crowd seemed to have gathered beside him, at the edge of a trim lawn that Locke recognized as the dueling green.

“Hold it, sirs, I beg of you,” said the young man. “I'm afraid it's an affair, and there may be a bolt flying past. Might I beg of you to wait but a moment?”

“Oh.
Oh
.” Locke and Jean relaxed simultaneously. If someone was dueling with crossbows, it was common courtesy as well as good sense to wait beside the dueling ground until the shots were taken. That way, neither participant would be distracted by movement in the background, or accidentally bury a bolt in a passerby.

The dueling green was about forty yards long and half as wide, lit at each of its four corners by a soft white lantern hanging in a black iron frame. Two duelists stood in the center of the green with their seconds, each man casting four pale gray shadows in a crisscross pattern. Locke had little personal inclination to watch, but he reminded himself that he was supposed to be Leocanto Kosta, a man of worldly indifference to strangers punching holes in one another. He and Jean squeezed into the crowd of spectators as unobtrusively as possible; a similar crowd had formed on the other side of the green.

One of the duelists was a very young man, dressed in fine loose gentleman's clothing of a fashionable cut; he wore optics, and his hair hung to his shoulders in well-tended ringlets.

His red-jacketed opponent was a great deal older, a bit hunched over and weathered. He looked active and determined enough to pose a threat, however. Each man held a lightweight crossbow—what Camorri thieves would call an alley-piece.

“Gentlemen,” said the younger duelist's second. “Please. Can there be no accommodation?”

“If the Lashani gentleman will withdraw his imprecation,” added the younger duelist. His voice was high and nervous. “I would be eminently satisfied, with the merest recognition—”

“No, there
cannot
,” said the man standing beside the older duelist. “His Lordship is not in the habit of tendering apologies for mere statements of obvious fact.”

“…with the
merest recognition
,” continued the young duelist, desperately, “that the incident was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and that it need not—”

“Were he to condescend to speak to you again,” said the older duelist's second, “his Lordship would no doubt also note that you wail like a
bitch
, and would inquire as to whether you're equally capable of biting like one.”

The younger duelist stood speechless for a few seconds, then gestured rudely toward the older men with his free hand.

“I am forced,” said his second, “I am, ah, forced…to allow that there may be no accommodation. Let the gentlemen stand…back-to-back.”

The two opponents walked toward each other—the older man marched with vigor while the younger still stepped hesitantly—and turned their backs to each other.

“You shall have ten paces,” said the younger man's second, with bitter resignation. “Wait then, and on my signal, you may turn and loose.”

Slowly he counted out the steps; slowly the two opponents walked away from each other. The younger man was shaking very badly indeed. Locke felt a ball of unaccustomed tension growing in his own stomach. Since when had he become such a damned softhearted fellow? Just because he preferred not to watch didn't mean he should be afraid to do so…yet the feeling in his stomach paid no heed to the thoughts in his head.

“…nine…ten. Stand fast,” said the young duelist's second. “Stand fast….
Turn and loose!
”