The Republic of Thieves #2

3

CONSTERNATION ERUPTED on the floor, shouts of joy mingling with accusations, cries of disbelief, and insults.

Sabetha folded her arms, leaned back in her chair, and adopted a wide, genuine smile.

“You boys gave me a closer run than I expected,” she said. “And I did have the advantage of getting here first.”

“That’s a gracious admission,” said Jean.

“Your gimmick with Lovaris would have been magnificent fun to watch,” said Sabetha. “I’m almost sad I had to put my foot down on it.”

“I’m not,” said Locke.

“ORDER,” cried First Magistrate Sedelkis. “ORDER!” The cloaked bluecoats surrounding the stage drove their staves rhythmically against the ground until the crowd heeded Sedelkis.

“All districts having reported, I hereby declare these results rightful and valid. Karthain has a Konseil. Gods bless the Presence. Gods bless the Republic of Karthain!”

“First Magistrate,” came a voice from the crowd, “I beg a moment of stage time to amend the record in one small respect.”

“Oh, what in all the hells … ,” said Sabetha.

The speaker was Lovaris, who separated himself from a group of happy Black Iris notables, pushed through the cordon of bluecoats around the stage, and took a place beside Sedelkis at a speaking trumpet.

“Dear friends and fellow citizens,” he said, while beckoning for one of the glass globe attendants to approach him. “I am Secondson Lovaris, often called Perspicacity, an honor I cherish. For twenty years I have represented the Bursadi District as an enthusiastic member of the Black Iris party. However, of late, I must confess that enthusiasm has been dimmed by circumstances beyond my control. I grieve that I must discuss this in public. I grieve that I must take corrective action in public.”

“Is anyone else at this table hallucinating right now?” said Sabetha.

“If we are, we’re sharing a lovely fever dream,” said Locke. “Let’s see how it ends!”

“I grieve, most of all,” continued Lovaris, “that I must announce my reluctant but immediate withdrawal from the Black Iris party. I will no longer wear their symbols or attend their party functions.”

“Gods above, are you actually resigning from the Konseil?” shouted someone in the crowd.

“Of course not,” shouted Lovaris. “I said nothing about resigning my Konseil seat! I am the Bursadi Konseillor, validly and rightfully elected, as the First Magistrate just announced.”

“Turncoat!” shouted a man that Locke recognized as Thirdson Jovindus. “You ran under false pretenses! Your election must be nullified in favor of your second!”

“We elect men and women in Karthain,” said Lovaris, and it was clear from his voice that he was speaking through a smirk that would have injured a lesser man with its intensity. “Those men and women declare party affiliations only as a matter of their own convenience. I am not bound to surrender anything. My honorable associate should more closely examine the relevant laws. Now, allow me to finish describing the new situation!”

Lovaris took a pole from the attendant he’d beckoned, then used it to extinguish and dislodge the candle from the middle-most black globe. One blank white glass was left in the midst of nine black and nine green.

“Simply because I have left the Black Iris does not mean that I have necessarily embraced any of the positions of the Deep Roots. I am declaring myself a party of one, fully independent, a neutral balance between Karthain’s traditional ideologies. I am fully willing to be convinced to any reasonable course of action in Konseil. Indeed, I remind my esteemed colleagues that my door is ever open for your approaches and entreaties. I shall very much look forward to receiving them. Good evening!”

What followed could only be described as the crescendoing clusterf*ck of the Karthani social season, as half the Konseillors of the Black Iris party, technically immune to constabulary restraint, attempted to storm the stage through a wall of bluecoats who could neither hurt them nor allow them to hurt Lovaris. First Magistrate Sedelkis demonstrated the co-equality of the Karthani judiciary by kicking a Black Iris Konseillor in the teeth, which brought even Deep Roots Konseillors into the fray to uphold the privileges of their station. Bluecoat messengers raced off to find reinforcements, while most of the noncombatant spectators refilled their goblets of punch and settled in to watch their government in action.

“I don’t believe it,” said Sabetha. “How the hell … I’ve got no more succinct way to put it. How the hell?”

“You warned Lovaris we were coming to try and convince him to change the color of his lapel ribbon,” said Locke. “And you know he didn’t buy that offer for an instant. He chewed on my self-respect for a while, then wiped me away like a turd.”

“’But we’d already prepared a second line of attack,” said Jean, pouring himself a fresh finger of brandy. “Ego-fodder. Something designed to appeal to his sense that he ought to be the hinge around which the rest of the world turned.”

“Catnip for an a*shole,” continued Locke. “Jean offered the second approach, on the theory that Lovaris might be more willing to parley seriously with an envoy he hadn’t just pissed all over. Turned out to be a good guess.”

“And now Lovaris is the most important man in Karthain,” whispered Sabetha. “Now any deadlock in Konseil is going to have to be resolved by his vote!”

“A possibility he found quite stimulating. The other Konseillors might detest his guts,” said Locke, “but they will be at his door, hats in hand, for the next five years, or until he’s assassinated. Hardly our problem either way.”

“And that’s all it took? A friendly suggestion?”

“Well, obviously, he agreed to go through with it only if the numbers added up,” said Locke. “If you’d had a wider margin of victory, he would have stayed silent. And there was one hell of a bribe to sweeten the deal.”

“He settled for twenty-five thousand ducats,” said Jean.

“How does he expect to hide it?” said Sabetha. “The Black Iris are going to rake him over the coals! His countinghouse will be watched, his business dealings will be dissected, any fresh property that turns up will be beaten like a dusty carpet for clues!”

“Hiding it’s not the issue,” said Locke, “since you already safely delivered it to him for us.”

Sabetha stared at him for a moment, then whispered, “The reliquary boxes!”

“I quietly boiled twenty-five thousand ducats down to precious stones, mostly emeralds and Spider’s Eye Pearls,” said Jean. “A lightweight cargo to stash in the bottom of the drawers. Your constables were much more squeamish about digging through the dust and bones of Lovaris’ forebears than he was.”

“I’d thought you’d taken them to hold hostage for his cooperation,” said Sabetha.

“It was the sensible conclusion,” said Locke. “We didn’t feel comfortable hauling a fat bribe to his manor ourselves; too much of a chance someone in your pay would notice us. Maybe even someone working for his household.”

“Try about half his household,” said Sabetha. “So you needed that treasure delivered to Lovaris, and you fed me its location on that boat … gods! How long had you known I had Nikoros under my thumb?”

“We found out nearly too late,” said Locke. “Just about everything he gave you before the boat was legitimately at our expense.”

“Hmmm. To give him the word on the boat …” She rubbed her temples. “Ah! That alchemical store I relieved you of in the Vel Vespala—that tip came from Nikoros. You … you must have given everyone you suspected word of some different juicy target!”

“And the target you stepped on told us who the leak was,” said Locke, grinning. “You have it exactly.”

“You impossible a*sholes!” Sabetha leapt up, moved around the table, pulled Locke and Jean from their chairs, and threw an arm around each of them, laughing. “Oh, you two are such insufferable weaselly shits, it’s marvelous!”

“You weren’t so bad yourself,” said Jean. “But for the grace of the gods, we might still be cruising the Amathel.”

“So what have we done?” said Sabetha, her voice full of honest wonderment. “What have we done? I suppose I won the election, but … I’m not sure if winning it for about thirty seconds is winning it at all.”

“Just as I’m not sure that nudging a victory into a tie is really the same as winning for our side,” said Locke. “Nor is it quite losing. A pretty mess, isn’t it? One for the drunkards and philosophers.”

“I wonder what the magi are going to say.”

“I hope they argue about it from now until the sun grows cold,” said Locke. “We did our bit, we fought sincerely, we perverted the final results just enough to eternally confuse anyone watching—what more could they possibly want?”

“I suppose we find out now,” said Jean.

“Did … Patience give you any instructions or hints about what to do once the ballots were counted?” said Sabetha.

“Not a word,” said Locke.

“Then why don’t we all get the hell out of here and let our employers find us in their own time?” Sabetha tossed back the last of her brandy. “I’ve got a safe house just off the Court of Dust. Rented it for a month, had firewood, linens, and wine laid in. I’d say it’s as comfortable a place as any to rest and figure out what we’re going to … do next.” She ran her fingers lightly over Locke’s left arm.

“Any plan to sneak us out of here without getting swept up in a brawl?” said Jean.

“New skins.” Sabetha produced a scalpel-thin dagger from somewhere in a jacket sleeve and used it to slit one of three paper parcels stacked beneath the chamber’s unnerving fresco. “Much as I hate to take this dress off display, I thought we’d find our exit that much easier if we dressed like the enemy.”

4

AT THE tenth hour of the evening, a trio of bluecoats pushed through the curious crowds at the main entrance to the Karthenium; a slender watchman and a sturdy watchman, led by a woman with sergeant’s pins on her lapels. They disposed of the last few people standing in their way with a combination of shoves and ominous mutterings about official business.

Locke and Jean followed Sabetha about fifty yards west, to a branching side court where a carriage waited. The night had darkened considerably, and as he opened the carriage door Locke’s eye was caught by an orange glare somewhere to the south.

“Looks like a fire,” he said. The conflagration rippled, gilding the shadowy buildings of what must have been the Palanta District with its light.

“Damned big one,” said Jean. “I hope it’s nothing to do with the election. Maybe these Karthani play harder than I ever gave them credit for.”

“Come on, you two, let’s not linger long enough to get noticed by anyone who might outrank us,” said Sabetha.

They all clambered into the carriage together. The driver, obedient to whatever orders Sabetha had given her earlier, shook the reins, and they were off, leaving the results of their tampering with Karthain’s electoral process behind them. Genuine bluecoats were still arriving in force, truncheons and shields drawn, as the carriage rattled over the paving stones, away from the Karthenium.
INTERSECT (IV)


IGNITION

“THE FIRST MAGISTRATE has just read the final district report,” says one of the young men, his voice dreamy, his eyes unfocused. Coldmarrow knows from long experience that the more tenuous and subtle mind-to-mind connections are the most demanding to sustain. Any damned fool can blaze their thoughts into the night for magi far and wide to receive like buzzing insects. The intelligence network now flashing thoughts across the city is straining itself to be utterly silent.

“The last district is Black Iris … ,” whispers the young mage.

“Black Iris victory,” says someone else. “By the skin of their teeth.”

“It seems that Patience’s vaunted Camorri were no match for ours,” smirks Archedama Foresight. She wears a leather hood and mantle, a dark linen mask, a mail-reinforced cuirass. Like all the men and women in the second-floor solar of Coldmarrow’s Palanta District house, she is dressed for a fight. “We’ll deal with them last, after all the other satisfactions of the evening have been dispensed with.”

“Necessities, let us rather say,” coughs Coldmarrow, taking deep, steady breaths to help rule his anxiety. The air is close, and it smells of all these magi, their robes and leathers, the wine on their breaths, the oils in their hair, their nervous, excited sweat.

“Why not both?” says the archedama.

“There’s a disturbance at the Karthenium,” whispers the young man who has been reporting on the election. “Someone … Lovaris of the Bursadi District. Some sort of announcement. He may be … ha! He may be switching sides!”

“Damn,” says Archedama Foresight. “But it seems to me that there’s no time like the present. All our targets must be absorbed in the distraction.”

“Oh, they are,” chuckles Coldmarrow. “It couldn’t be working better. Are your people in their proper positions?”

“All of them,” says Foresight.

“Then here’s to necessity,” says Coldmarrow, his mouth suddenly dry. “And to the future of all our kind.”

Coldmarrow speaks a word.

The word becomes fire.

A spark flashes in the dark heart of a jar of fire-oil, one of a hundred, tightly sealed, placed in the space beneath the floor of the room a month before. This jar is half-full, containing just enough air for the flame to breathe the vapors of the oil. The explosion is white-hot, shattering the clay vessels, sucking air and oil into the roaring, all-devouring blast.

Not even magi can move faster than this, or protect themselves with so little warning. The floor moves beneath Coldmarrow’s feet, then comes sharp dark heat, stunning pressure, and sudden silence. Coldmarrow dies taking fourteen magi with him, including Archedama Foresight. He has no time to feel either regret or satisfaction; it will simply have to be enough.

The war lasts nine minutes. It is utterly one-sided, the only possible war magi can wage with any hope of total victory against others trained in the same traditions, to the same standards.

Archedama Foresight’s people discover that their own ambush is stillborn, their positions ready-made traps. They have always been outnumbered by the larger faction of magi they derided as meek, and now those opponents apply their numbers to disproving the slander.

No quarter is given, no fair fight allowed. Strength is brought against weakness. Across rooftops, within lamp-lit gardens, inside the halls of the Isas Scholastica and the private homes of sorcerers, the assault is quick and silent and absolute.

As the tipsy, confused politicians of Karthain clamber over one another in a comical brawl at the heart of the Karthenium, seventy magi die in the dark places of the city, taking only a handful of their killers with them.

Navigator finds Patience alone in the Sky Chamber, staring at the bowl of the artificial heavens, currently mirroring the actual sky over Karthain, the rolling dark clouds summoned to lock the light of moons and stars away. Shadow has been drawn over the city like a cloak, to better hide the evidence.

“It’s over,” says Patience. She speaks real words to the air; the silver threads of thought-speech have unraveled unpleasantly across Karthain; cries of pain and betrayal, cries for help that will never come, and Patience has hardened her mind against most of the noise. “Now we have to live with ourselves.”

“Tell our troubles to the shades of Therim Pel,” says the one-armed woman. She wipes a tear from her cheek.

“We are each one in a thousand thousand,” says Patience. “We have destroyed some of the rarest and most precious things in the world tonight. Our distant inheritors may curse us for what we’ve done.”

“We already deserve their curses, Archedama.”

“So long as there’s still a world left for them to curse us in. Come now; help me do it.”

The two women bow their heads, move their hands in perfect concert, and speak words of unweaving that tear at their throats like desert air. The beautiful conjured heavens of the Sky Chamber fade like the memory of a dream, until there is nothing but a dome of plain white stones, grayed with the patina of old smoke.

“Do you wish to see your son now?” says Navigator.

“No,” says Patience, suddenly feeling every one of her years, suddenly wishing for the touch and the laugh of a man who was taken by the Amathel half her lifetime ago. “I’ll speak to Lamora first. But for now I want to be alone for a while.”

Navigator nods and quietly withdraws, leaving Patience alone in the silent vastness of a room that will never be used again.

One final duty remains at the end of this long campaign, and Patience does not yet have the heart to face it.
LAST INTERLUDE


THIEVES PROSPER

1

THE REMAINS OF Gennaro Boulidazi, last of his line, were taken away under his family colors. An apoplectic Brego did most of the work, after being rebuked for his panic and disbelief by Baroness Ezrintaim. She did, however, graciously assign a number of constables to serve as an honor guard.

It was the middle of the night before all the constables and soldiers decamped from within Gloriano’s Rooms, chasing off the small crowd of locals and curiosity-seekers as they went. Baroness Ezrintaim left only a small guard posted outside, their orders to preserve the peace for the “nobles” spending their last night in Espara within.

Jean and Jenora went off together early, to spend that night as they saw fit. The Sanzas, seemingly reluctant to let one another out of their sight, claimed a corner of the main room and drank with Alondo and Donker—not the boisterous drinking of celebration but the quiet ritual of people relieved to still have throats to pour their ale down.

Bert and Chantal fell asleep on one another, wrapped up together in an old cloak. Mistress Gloriano promised Locke she would wake them eventually and pack them off to a proper room. She and Sylvanus then sat together, working on a ribbon-wrapped bottle of some expensive brandy whose existence had never previously been mentioned to the thirsty ingrates pounding her bar for service.

Sabetha was clear and to the point, without words. She found Locke bound up in his thoughts in the main room and dispelled them with a hand on his shoulder. She glanced at the stairs by way of a question, and when he nodded, her smile made him feel something even the cheers of eight hundred strangers hadn’t been able to.

They commandeered an empty chamber. Sabetha used the room’s only chair to wedge it shut and admired her handiwork with grim satisfaction.

They were tired, the smell of smoke was nested deep in their hair, and the last thing they needed was more sweat without a bath, but neither of them cared. They were at home in the darkness in a way that only the survivors of places like Shades’ Hill could understand, and alive to one another’s’ lips and hands as they had never been before. They were still shy, still awkward and unschooled. But if their first night together had been confusing and incomplete, their second … ah, their second taught them why people keep trying.