The Lies of Locke Lamora (45 page)

“I’m pleased that you’ve answered my summons,” Locke replied.

“The blood of my daughter is the only thing that’s summoned me,” said Barsavi.

“Dwell on it if you must,” said Locke, praying silently as he extemporized.
Nazca, gods, please forgive me.
“Were you any gentler, when you took this city for yourself, twenty-two years ago?”

“Is that what you think you’re doing?” Barsavi stopped and stared at him; they were about forty feet apart. “Taking my city from me?”

“I summoned you to discuss the matter of Camorr,” said Locke. “To settle it to our mutual satisfaction.” The Falconer hadn’t interrupted him yet; he presumed he was doing well.

“The satisfaction,” said Barsavi, “will not be mutual.” He raised his left hand, and one man stepped from the crowd.

Locke peered at this man carefully; he seemed to be an older fellow, slight and balding, and he wasn’t wearing armor. Very curious. He also appeared to be shivering.

“Do as we discussed, Eymon,” said the capa. “I’ll hold true to my bargain, truer than any I’ve ever made.”

The unarmored man began to walk forward, slowly, hesitantly, staring at Locke with obvious fear. But still he kept coming, straight toward Locke, while a hundred armed men and women waited behind him, doing nothing.

“I pray,” said Locke, with a bantering tone, “that man isn’t contemplating what I suspect.”

“We’ll all see what his business is soon enough,” said the capa.

“I cannot be cut or pierced,” said Locke, “and this man will die at my touch.”

“So it’s been said,” replied the capa. Eymon continued to move forward; he was thirty feet from Locke, then twenty.

“Eymon,” said Locke, “you are being ill-used. Stop now.”

Gods,
he thought.
Don’t do what I think you’re going to do. Don’t make the Falconer kill you.

Eymon continued to shamble forward; his jowls were quivering, and he was breathing in short sharp gasps. His hands were out before him, shaking, like a man about to reach into a fire.

Crooked Warden,
Locke thought,
please, let him be scared. Please let him stop. Falconer, Falconer, please, put a fright into him, do anything else but kill him.
A river of sweat ran down his spine; he bent his head slightly and fixed Eymon with a stare. Ten feet now lay between them.

“Eymon,” he said, striving for a casual tone and not entirely succeeding, “you have been warned. You are in mortal peril.”

“Oh yeah,” said the man, his voice quavering. “Yeah, that I know.” And then he closed the distance between them, and he reached out for Locke’s right arm with both of his hands—

Fuck,
thought Locke, and although he knew deep down that it would be the Falconer killing the man and not himself…

He flinched back from Eymon’s touch.

Eymon’s eyes lit up; he gasped, and then, to Locke’s horror, he leapt forward and grabbed Locke’s arm with both of his hands, like a scavenger bird clutching at a long-delayed meal. “Haaaaaaaaaaaa!” he cried, and for one brief second Locke thought something terrible was happening to him.

But no; Eymon still lived, and he had a very firm grip.

“Double fuck,” Locke mumbled, bringing up his left fist to clout the poor fellow; but he was off balance, and Eymon had him at a disadvantage. The slender man gave Locke a shove backward, screaming once again,
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
A cry of absolute triumph; Locke puzzled over it as he fell flat on his ass.

And then there were booted feet slapping the stones behind Eymon, and dark shapes rushing around him to grab at Locke. In the dancing light cast by two dozen moving torches, Locke found himself hauled back up to his feet, pinned by strong hands that clutched at his arms and his shoulders and his neck.

Capa Barsavi pushed through his eager crowd of men and women, forced Eymon more gently to the side, and stood face to face with Locke, his fat ruddy features alight with anticipation.

“Well, Your Majesty,” he said, “I’ll bet you’re
one confused son of a bitch
right about now.”

And then Barsavi’s people were laughing, cheering. And then the capa’s ham-hock fist planted itself in Locke’s stomach, and the air rushed out of his lungs, and black pain exploded in his chest. And then he knew just how deeply in the shit he truly was.

“YES, I’LL bet you’re pretty
gods-damned curious
at this point,” said Barsavi, strutting back and forth in front of Locke, who remained pinioned by half a dozen men, any one of them half again his size. “And so am I. Let’s throw that hood back, boys.”

Rough hands yanked at Locke’s hood and mantle, and the capa stared coldly at him, running one hand up and down his beards. “Gray, gray, gray. You look like you belong on a stage,” he laughed. “And such a
skinny
fellow, too. What a weak little man we’ve caught ourselves tonight—the Gray King, sovereign of fog and shadows and precious little else.”

The capa backhanded him, grinning; the stinging pain had just registered when he did it again, from the other direction. Locke’s head lolled. He was grabbed from behind by his hair and made to look the capa right in the face. Locke’s thoughts whirled. Had the capa’s men somehow located the Falconer? Had they distracted him? Was the capa mad enough to actually
kill
a Bondsmage, if he had the chance?

“Oh, we know you can’t be cut,” continued Barsavi, “and we know you can’t be pierced, more’s the pity. But bruised? It’s a curious thing about the spells of a Bondsmage. They’re so damn
specific
, aren’t they?”

And then he punched Locke in the stomach again, to a murmur of widespread amusement. Locke’s knees buckled beneath him, and his attendants hoisted him again, holding him upright, as bolts of pain radiated from his abdomen.

“One of your men,” said Barsavi, “strolled into my Floating Grave this very morning.”

A little chill crept down Locke’s spine.

“Seems I’m not the only one you pissed off when you sent my Nazca back to me the way you did,” said Barsavi, leering. “Seems that some of your men
didn’t
sign on with your merry little crew for that sort of gods-damned
desecration
. So your man and I, we had ourselves a talk. And we fixed a price. And then he told me all sorts of
fascinating
things about that spell of yours. And that story about you being able to kill men with a touch? Oh, he
told
me it was bullshit.”

Sewn up,
said a little voice at the back of Locke’s head that most certainly was
not
the Falconer.
Sewn up, sewn up.
Of course the Falconer hadn’t been distracted, or taken by any of Barsavi’s men.
Neat as a gods-damned hanging.

“But I was only willing to trust the fellow so far,” Barsavi said. “So I made a deal with Eymon, whom I’m sure you don’t recognize. Eymon is dying. He has the cold consumption, the tumors in his stomach and his back. The sort no physiker can cure. He’s got maybe two months, maybe less.” The capa clapped Eymon on the back as proudly as if the skinny man were his own flesh and blood.

“So I said, ‘Why don’t you step up and grab the filthy little bastard, Eymon? If he really can kill with a touch, well, you’ll go quick and easy. And if he can’t…’” Barsavi grinned, his red cheeks wrinkling grotesquely.

“Well, then.”

“A thousand full crowns,” said Eymon, giggling.

“For starters,” added Barsavi. “A promise I intend to keep. A promise I intend to
expand
. I told Eymon he’d die in his own villa, with gems and silks and half a dozen ladies of his choice from the Guilded Lilies to keep him company. I will
invent
pleasures for him. He’ll die like a fucking
duke
, because tonight I name him the bravest man in Camorr.”

There was a general roar of approval; men and women applauded, and fists banged on armor and shields.

“Quite the opposite,” Barsavi whispered, “of a sneaking, cowardly piece of shit who would murder my only daughter. Who wouldn’t even do it with his own
hands
. Who’d let some fucking hireling work a twisted magic on her. A
poisoner
.” Barsavi spat in Locke’s face; the warm spittle trickled down his cheek. “Your man told me, of course, that your Bondsmage had set his spell and left your service last night; that you were so very
confident
, you didn’t want to keep paying him. Well, I for one applaud your sense of
economy
.”

Barsavi gestured to Anjais and Pachero; grim-faced, the two men stepped forward. They slipped their optics off and put them in vest pockets; an ominous gesture conducted in unconscious unison. Locke opened his mouth to say something—and then the realization of exactly
how
sewn up he was struck him cold.

He could proclaim his true identity, have the capa tear off his false moustache and rub away the wrinkles, spill the entire story—but what would it gain him? He would never be believed.
He’d already displayed a Bondsmage’s protection.
If he confessed to being Locke Lamora, the hundred men and women here would be after Jean and Bug and the Sanzas next.

If he was going to save them, he had to play the Gray King until the capa was finished with him, and then he would pray for a quick and easy death. Let Locke Lamora just vanish one night; let his friends slip away to whatever better fate awaited them. Blinking back hot tears, he summoned up a grin, looked at the two Barsavi sons, and said, “By all means, you fucking curs, let’s see if you can do any better than your father.”

Anjais and Pachero knew how to strike a man with the intent to kill, but just now they had no such intent. They bruised his ribs, knuckle-punched his arms, kicked his thighs, slapped his head from side to side, and punched him in the neck until every breath was a chore. At last, Anjais had him hoisted back up, and took hold of his chin so that the two of them were looking eye to eye.

“By the way,” said Anjais, “
this
is from Locke Lamora.”

Anjais balanced Locke’s chin on one finger and walloped him with his other hand. White-hot pain shot through Locke’s neck, and in the red-tinted darkness around him he saw stars. He spat blood, coughed, and licked his sore, swollen lips.

“Now,” said Barsavi, “I’ll have a father’s justice for Nazca’s death.”

He clapped his hands three times.

Behind him, there was an audible noise of men cursing, and heavy footfalls banging against the stone steps. Through the door came eight more men, carrying a large wooden cask—a cask the size of the one Nazca Barsavi had been returned to her father in. The funeral cask. The crowd around Barsavi and his sons parted eagerly to let the cask haulers through. They set it on the ground beside the capa, and inside it Locke heard the slosh of liquid.

Oh, thirteen gods,
he thought.

“Can’t be cut, can’t be pierced,” said the capa, as though he were musing out loud. “But you can certainly be bruised. And you certainly need to breathe.”

Two of the capa’s men popped the lid on the cask open, and Locke was dragged over to it. The eye-watering stench of horse urine spilled out into the air, and he gagged, sobbing.

“Look at the Gray King cry,” whispered Barsavi. “Look at the Gray King sob. A sight I will treasure to the last hour of my
dying day
!” His voice rose. “Did Nazca sob? Did my daughter cry, as you gave her her death? Somehow I don’t think so.”

The capa was shouting now. “Take a last look! He gets what Nazca got; he dies as she died, but by
my hand
!”

Barsavi seized Locke by the hair and tilted his face toward the barrel; for one brief irrational moment, Locke was grateful that there was nothing in his stomach to throw up. The dry retching still brought spasms of pain to his much-abused stomach muscles.

“With one small touch,” said the capa, actually gulping back sobs of exhilaration. “With one small touch, you son of a bitch. No poison for
you
. No quick way out before I put you in. You get to taste it, the whole time. All the while as you
drown
in it.”

And then he hefted Locke by the mantle, grunting. His men joined in, and together they hoisted him up over the rim, and then down he plunged face-first, down into thick, lukewarm filth that blotted out the noise of the world around him, down into darkness that burned his eyes and his cuts and swallowed him whole.

BARSAVI’S MEN slammed the lid back onto the barrel; several of them hammered it down with mallets and axe-butts until it was cinched tight. The capa gave the top of the barrel a thump with his fist and smiled broadly. Tears were still running down his cheeks.

“Somehow I don’t think the poor fucker did as well as he hoped with our negotiations!”

The men and women around him whooped and hollered, arms in the air, torches waving and casting wild shadows on the walls.

“Take this bastard and send him out to sea,” said the capa, gesturing toward the waterfall.

A dozen pairs of eager hands grabbed at the barrel. Laughing and joking, a crowd of the capa’s people hoisted it and carried it over to the northwestern corner of the Echo Hole, where water poured in from the ceiling and vanished into blackness through a fissure about eight feet wide. “One,” said the leader, “two…” And on the cusp of “three,” they flung the barrel down into darkness. It struck water somewhere beneath them with a splash; then they threw up their arms and began cheering once again.

“Tonight,” cried Barsavi, “Duke Nicovante sleeps safe in his bed, locked away in his glass tower! Tonight the Gray King sleeps in
piss
, in a tomb that I have made for him! Tonight is my night! Who rules Camorr?”

“Barsavi!”
came the response from every throat in the Echo Hole, reverberating around the alien-set stones of the structure, and the capa was surrounded by a sea of noise, laughter, applause.

“Tonight,” he yelled, “send messengers to every corner of
my
domains! Send runners to the Last Mistake! Send runners to Catchfire! Wake the Cauldron and the Narrows and the Dregs and all the Snare! Tonight, I throw open my doors! The Right People of Camorr will come to the Floating Grave as my guests! Tonight, we’ll have such a revel that the honest folk will bar their doors, that the yellowjackets will cringe in their barracks, that the gods themselves will look down and cry, ‘
What is that fucking racket?
’”