The Republic of Thieves #2

CHAPTER TWELVE


THE END OF OLD DREAMS

1

THE SMELL OF her, the taste of her. Locke awoke in darkness, still awash in those things. His sweat, their sweat, had cooled and dried on his skin, and the bed … he ran his hands over her side of it and found it empty, the blanket thrown back.

He remembered where he was. The upper room of Sabetha’s house off the Court of Dust, the one with the expensively luxurious mattress and the Lashani silk sheets. He couldn’t have been asleep for long.

There was someone in the darkness, watching him, and he knew in an instant it wasn’t Sabetha, knew with every fiber of his intuition who it must be, standing by the faint gray cracks of light at the window.

“What have you done?” he whispered.

“We spoke,” said Patience. “I showed her something.”

Soft silver light filled the room—the cold alchemical globes, in response to a mere gesture of Patience’s. Locke saw her hands moving as his eyes adjusted, saw that she wore a heavy traveler’s cloak with the hood thrown back.

“Where’s Jean?”

“Downstairs, where you left him,” said Patience. “He’ll awaken soon. Do you want to get dressed, or are you comfortable speaking like this?”

The cold Locke felt had little to do with the mere fact that he was naked. He slid from the bed, not caring that he concealed nothing from Patience, and dressed in what he could only hope, ludicrously, was somehow an insolent fashion. He donned trousers and tunic like armor, threw a simple dark jacket on as though it could keep Patience and her words out.

Locke saw that there was something leaning against the wall behind Patience, a flat rectangular object about three feet high, covered in a gray cloth.

“She tried to write you a note,” said Patience. “It was … beyond her. She left half an hour ago.”

“What did you do to her, Patience?”

“I did nothing.” Her dark eyes caught him, seemed to pierce him. Those hunter’s eyes. “To my arts, Sabetha Belacoros is a puppet waiting for a hand, but it would have been meaningless, had I done anything. She had to choose. I gave her information that led to a choice.”

“You utter bitch—”

“I also saved your life tonight,” she said. “For the second and last time. This is our final conversation, Locke Lamora, if that’s what you still choose to call yourself. I’ve come to render all dues and finish my business with you.”

“Do you want to kill me yourself, at last?”

“Certainly not.”

“And … you mean to keep your word? Money and transportation to see us on our way?”

“There’s no money and no transportation,” said Patience, laughing without humor. “You’ll receive nothing else from us. Your countinghouse contacts will no longer recognize you, and your Deep Roots associates already think of Sebastian Lazari as a gray ghost of a memory. Wherever you gentlemen choose to go next, I suspect you have a long walk ahead of you.”

“Why are you doing this to us?” said Locke.

“The Falconer,” she said.

“So revenge was the game after all,” said Locke. “Well, a creature like the Falconer deserved every second of hurt I ever gave him, and f*ck you if you expect me to think otherwise!”

“You can’t understand what you took from him,” said Patience, her words hot and thick with scorn. “Your flesh is inert; magic is nothing more than the sound of the wind to you. You can never feel it, feel the words leaving you like fire, like arrows from a bowstring! To know that power welling beneath you and bearing you like a feather on a wind. You think I’m selfish for this? Cruel? It’s less than you deserve! Killing him would have been mercy. I’ve killed magi. But you stole his hands and his voice. You took the tools of magic from him and smashed him like a priceless work of art. You stole his destiny. The Archedama Patience could forgive you. The mother and the mage cannot.”

“I refer you to my former statement,” said Locke, his voice trembling.

A heavy tread sounded on the stairs. Jean burst into the room, slamming the door aside without knocking.

“I don’t understand,” he panted. “I was just … You f*cking did something to me again, didn’t you?

“A brief slumber,” said Patience. “I wanted time with Sabetha, and then with Locke. But you might as well hear everything else I have to say.”

“Where’s Sabetha?” said Jean.

“Alive,” said Patience. “And fled, of her own accord.”

“Why do I—?”

“You’ve got nothing more I want, Jean Tannen,” said Patience. “Interrupt me again and Locke leaves Karthain alone.”

Jean balled his fists, but remained silent.

“I’m leaving Karthain too,” said Patience. “Myself and all my kind. Tonight ends the last of the Five-Year Games, and our centuries of life here. Whenever the Karthani find the nerve to enter the Isas Scholastica, they’ll find our buildings empty, our tunnels collapsed, our libraries and treasures vanished. We are removing all trace of ourselves from Karthain down to the dust under our beds.”

“Why on the gods’ earth would you do such a thing?” said Locke.

“Karthain is the old dream,” said Patience. “It’s served its purpose. We have gathered strength, honed our skills, and collected the wealth we need to do what we must. There will be no more contracts. No more Bondsmagi. We are retiring from the public life of this world. Never again can we allow such an institution as this to arise.”

“That … that danger you spoke of?” said Locke, unnerved and startled by the magnitude of the changes Patience’s words implied.

“There are things moving and dreaming in the darkness,” said Patience. “We refuse to risk any further chance of waking them up. Yet human magic must survive, so we must learn how to make it as quiet as possible.”

“Why run us through this damned election?” said Locke. “Gods, why not just put us in a room and tell us this shit and save us all so much trouble?”

“Wise members of my order a century ago,” said Patience, “foresaw our direction beyond a shadow of a doubt. We used our contracts to enrich ourselves, but they also made us arrogant. They fueled the impulse to dominate, to see our powers as limitless and the world as our clay.

“These wise men and women knew that a crisis would break, a time for blood, and the only way to win would be to achieve surprise. They envisioned a disruption of our ordinary lives so profound and yet so routine that it could conceal preparations for a fight when the time came. The Five-Year Games became a regular part of our society, a pageant and a release. But a few of us were always trusted with the original intention of the games, and the knowledge that we might have to employ it.”

“So it was all just … a monumental misdirection?” said Locke. “While we danced for everyone’s amusement, you sharpened your knife and stuck it in somebody’s back”?”

“All those magi that I once described as exceptionalists,” said Patience. “All those brothers and sisters. I mourn them, even as I know there was no convincing them. They will stay in Karthain forever. The rest of us go on.”

“Why tell us any of this?” said Jean.

“Because I value your discomfort.” Patience smiled without warmth. “I described the conditions of your employment very succinctly. We are not vanishing from the world, merely from the eyes of ordinary people. Share our business with anyone and you are always in our reach.”

“Ordinary people,” said Locke. “Well, how ordinary am I, really? What’s the truth of all the tales you spun about my past?”

“You should look at the painting I brought for Sabetha.” Patience tapped the wrapped object leaning against the wall behind her. “I’m leaving it here, though in a day or two it will be nothing but white ash. It’s the only portrait of Lamor Acanthus ever painted during his life. I ought to tell you, the likeness is impeccable.”

“A simple answer!” shouted Locke. “What am I?”

“You’re a man who doesn’t get to know the answer,” said Patience, and now her smile was genuine. She was shaking with the obvious difficulty of containing her laughter. “Look at you. Camorri! Confidence trickster! You think you know what revenge is? Well, here’s mine on you. Before I was Archedama Patience, I was called Seamstress. Not because I enjoy needlework, but because I tailor to fit.”

Locke could only stare at her, feeling cold and hollow to the depths of his guts.

“Live a good long life without your answer,” she said. “I think you’ll find the evidence neatly balanced in either direction. Now, one thing more will I tell you, and this only because I know it will haunt and disquiet you. My son preferred to mock my premonitions, but only because he didn’t want to face the fact that they always have substance. I shall give you a little prophecy, Locke Lamora, as best as I have seen it.

“Three things must you take up and three things must you lose before you die: a key, a crown, a child.” Patience pushed her hood up over her head. “You will die when a silver rain falls.”

“You’re making all this shit up,” said Locke.

“I could be,” said Patience. “I very well could be. And that’s part of your punishment. Go forth now and live, Locke Lamora. Live, uncertain.”

She gestured once and was gone.

2

JEAN REMAINED at the door, staring at the gray-wrapped package. Finally, Locke worked up the nerve to seize it and tear away the cover.

It was an oil painting. Locke stared at it for some time, feeling the lines on his face draw taut as a bowstring, feeling moistness well in the corners of his eyes.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course. Lamor Acanthus. And wife, I presume.”

He made a noise that was half dour laugh and half strangled sob, and threw the painting on the bed. The black-robed man in the portrait looked nothing like Locke; he was broad-shouldered, with the classically dark, sharp aspect of a Therin Throne patrician. The woman beside him bore the same sort of haughty glamour, down to her bones, but she was much fairer of skin.

Her thick, flowing hair was as red as fresh blood.

“I’m everything Sabetha was afraid of,” said Locke. “Tailored to fit.”

“I’m … I’m sorry as hell I got you into this,” said Jean.

“Shit! Don’t go wobbly on me now, Jean. I was as good as dead, and the only way out of this was to go through, all the way to Patience’s endgame. Now she’s played it.”

“We can go after Sabetha,” said Jean. “She’s had half an hour, how far could she get?”

“I want to,” said Locke, wiping his eyes. “Gods, I can still smell her everywhere in this room. And gods, I want her back.” He slumped onto the bed. “But I … I promised to trust her. I promised to … respect her decisions, no matter how much it f*cking cut me. If she has to run from this, if she has to be away from me, then for as long as she needs, I’ll … I’ll accept it. If she wants to find me again, what could stop her?”

Jean put his hands on Locke’s shoulders and bowed his head in thought.

“You’re gonna be f*cking miserable to live with for a couple of weeks,” he said at last.

“Probably,” said Locke with a rueful chuckle. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, we should case this place and pack everything useful we can lay our hands on,” said Jean. “Clothes, food, tools. We don’t have to go after Sabetha, but we’d best have our asses on the road before the sun peeks over the horizon.”

“Why?”

“Karthain hasn’t kept up an army or maintained its walls for three hundred years,” said Jean. “In a few hours, it’s going to wake up to discover that the only thing keeping it protected from the world at large has vanished during the night. Do you want to be here when that mess breaks wide open?”

“Oh, shit. Good point.”

Locke stood up and looked around the room one last time.

“Key, crown, child,” he muttered. “Well, f*ck you, Patience. Three things must you kiss before I let you spook me for good. My boots, my balls, and my ass.”

Locke pulled his boots on and followed Jean down the stairs, impatient to have Karthain at his back and slowly sinking into the horizon.