Scott Lynch

Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent. Part 2

7.

“I’m staring down four glasses of the serpent for YOU!” Mazoc Szaba whirled theatrically for the tolerably piqued crowd. “Those of you about to make money with me, that is! Those who bet against me, well, lick my nethermost crack at your convenience. Measure! Here’s my stake. Harvest the wagers and fill my glass!”

Locke’s coin, transmuted to Szaba’s moments earlier, rose toward the Measure’s alcove on Szaba’s outstretched palm. It was never to complete the journey.

“Why, Mazoc Szaba. To find you here of all places.”

Locke knew the voice and looked in surprise at the street door. Anjais Barsavi held that door open. He was a stout and centered plug of a man, much like his father, the Capa of Camorr.

Anjais moved forward, peering at Szaba over the tops of the sweated optics perched on his nose, and the silenced crowd parted for him as though repelled by sorcery. Behind him came a band of grim men and women with lines of ash painted across their cheeks. Grave Walkers, a gang in close Barsavi service, like the Red Hands. There were certain people the Capa might use for gentle errands. Grave Walkers were the other sort.

“Sir,” stammered Mazoc Szaba, “I don’t—”

“You know Ferrant One-Eye belongs to me.” Anjais was not a particularly forceful speaker but the circumstance of his parentage had given him a great deal of practice at talking over people. “So you can deduce who Ferrant complains to when one of her markers doesn’t appear on calling day. Not a shred of the principal. Not a taste of the lender’s sauce. And you neither at the counting-house fetching my money nor on the street earning it. Now you know why I’ve come. But what are you doing here, Szaba?”

“I’m… I’m to drink the serpent, if you’d care to watch.”

“Watch a man who owes me money drink poison instead? Never knew you had such a sense of humor. What were you proposing to stake your bet with?”

Szaba, shaking, dumbly showed the row of coins in his hand like a small child called to account before a tutor.

“My money, you mean?” Barsavi swept the eight solons from Szaba’s palm, and Szaba took this like a mouse for the same reason Locke, biting the insides of his cheeks, had to take it like a mouse. There were three thousand Right People in Camorr, and Anjais Barsavi could point them all at a single human life the way an ordinary person could send a puff of breath over a candle’s wick.

“Measure, I apologize for this interruption, but Mazoc Szaba is in no condition to drink serpent wine. His stomach is troubling him,” continued Barsavi. He was fast with a body blow and his technique was schooled; in an instant Szaba was folded up around his fist, then sinking to the floor.

“Yes, his digestion is too delicate for this amusement tonight.” As Szaba hit the floor, Anjais slammed a boot into his midsection, then did it again, and again. “Those who turn a blind eye to their debts in Camorr often develop this condition.”

Anjais knelt and patted the speechless, gasping old mercenary on his head with mock tenderness. “Does it register, you degenerate cozener? Get your balance owed to Ferrant and ensure I never have to hear about you taking a walk on one of my lenders again. If your stomach condition recurs, I assure you it will prove fatal.”

Paying no heed to the crowd that was equally disinclined to attract his attention, Anjais turned to leave and only then noticed Locke staring at him from behind the counter. “Why, it’s Lamora, isn’t it? Nazca’s little friend from the Bastards. Out on a placement, are you?”

Locke nodded, certain his eyes were bulging and his cheeks were burning bright enough to raise questions, but Anjais seemed to take for granted that this awkward mess was the natural state of his face. Smiling, he flipped a single, thin copper to Locke.

“Compliments to your garrista. The more trades you have a taste of, the less likely you are to end up with stomach trouble.”

Followed by his Grave Walkers, he went out the door with most of the proceeds of Locke’s summer in his pocket.

As the door swung shut once more, Mazoc Szaba cursed in what sounded like Vadran. Then he threw up.

“Get the mop bucket and fucking hop to it,” grumbled Botari, who had miraculously reappeared the instant Anjais Barsavi was gone.

8.

Szaba was, in a way, lucky to have been interrupted before any wagers had gone in, for this limited the number of willing hands that ejected him out the back moments later, and meant it wasn’t worth the bother of sticking a knife into him during his passage.

Locke seethed. Nobody had seemed to notice him providing Szaba’s stake, so that at least was a ribbing he wouldn’t have to endure. But the money! That magnanimous copper from Anjais made him whole for precisely one part back from forty-eight.

Chains hadn’t needed to explain why Locke was expected to scrabble together a purse from this drudgery; as a Gentleman Bastard, his activities paid into the sum that was kicked up to the Capa each week, and the mere fact that he was over here for a few months wouldn’t take his portion off his shoulders. What truly vexed him that night, going round and round in his head as he wiped counters and filled cups and mopped up after people who seemed to like spilling as much as they liked swallowing, was the question of using his skills to get back what he’d lost.

There were a hundred ways, using all the schemes and guiles Chains had taught him, to pull eight solons from fools in half a day. Though perhaps that was a frustrated exaggeration — a couple dozen, perhaps. Well, seven or eight, maybe. But they were seven or eight smooth-practiced schemes that weren’t merely waiting for Botari to set coins in his hand with all the speed and willingness of a mule doing geometry problems. Yet Chains had specifically forbidden him from using those arts.

The night went on. Locke wiped and poured and carried. His own damn fault, this was, for loving the old man enough to obey him even when it meant toil. Tending a conscience was a form of toil, he supposed. He’d tended it for the years it had taken to pay off the careless deaths represented by the shark’s tooth tucked into the little pouch he wore on a cord beneath his tunic. It felt good to brood on such thoughts as he worked. Locke had deep feelings about nearly everything but had not yet aged into the realization that brooding was just about his only means of interacting with those feelings.

The moons were high and lighting his way with soft silver-blue by the time he carried the last of the night’s dross into the alley. A fresh corpse sprawled there, not Szaba’s. Nor was there anything of value on the man’s body. Locke sighed, hunched with weariness, and went back inside to find Cyril and Vilius.

9.

“But where do we go, hmm? And what do we ask for? For good young lads of, ah, negotiable affection? Can you at least be that much of a friend?”

The three men at the counter were sturdy, bearded, red-faced. Merchants of some sort not from Camorr proper, but up or down the coast. Locke knew the type. Their notions of prosperity armored them in smugness. They were after a little thrill in the wrong parts of the big city, having no idea of the scope or shape of Right People operations, and no idea how easy it was for someone to make a red breakfast for sharks and never be missed. It was two nights after Mazoc Szaba’s humiliation.

“To be a friend,” said Locke, “I’d tell you to get smartly out of here, and go west by north, back to where there’s more Yellowjackets on the streets. Back to the sort of inn or tavern you’d want for your own sort of business. Ask around there, keep your voices down. Folk will know how to direct you. Say you’re looking for miners.”

“But we don’t want to dig in the earth,” chuckled the most talkative of the three. “We want to get fobbed. We want the sweet ache sucked out of us, you ken?

“Miners. It’s cant. They’re called miners because they use their tools to find metal, get it? Say you’re after copper miners if your purses are light, silver miners if you can afford it.”

“Well, what about you, boy? If we didn’t want to stroll for our pleasure, how’d you like to do a bit of mining somewhere quiet nearby?”

Locke wasn’t offended or frightened, but he was exasperated. Nobody thought they were bigger than little merchants who did a bit of traveling. Nobody was more certain that all the features and curiosities of the world were set out for their convenience.

“Not my line,” he said, “and you can’t ask that here. There’s ways of doing things and places to do them, lots of places. But this business is closely minded.” He wasn’t going to spend all night explaining the Guilded Lilies or the Passing Fancies to these strangers, or that those gangs didn’t take kindly to freelance fuck-mongering.

“You’re telling us you don’t know a good place to hide around here?”

“The boy’s telling you he’s not interested.” Mazoc Szaba set one hand on the bar. “Get gone, you slack-witted palliards. He told you how to find your fun. Go find it somewhere better-lit and stay in those districts.”

The talkative merchant looked as though he might snap back, but Locke saw the fight go out of him as he assessed Szaba. There was something grim and assured about the old mercenary tonight. His eyes were fierce, there was a fresh cut across one of his cheeks, and the straight lines of a scabbard were obvious beneath his jacket. Perhaps that was why nobody had mocked or otherwise remarked upon him as he’d slipped into the Unbroken Jar.

Hands up, eyes wide, the three merchants backed out the door and into the night.

Locke stared at Szaba, wishing he could conjure such an aura of menace about himself but knowing if he tried he’d look like a clown. A small clown who’d lost control of his face. He settled for not smiling, and some of the iron seemed to go out of Szaba’s spine.

“I have earned that lack of enthusiasm, I suppose,” Szaba muttered. “I did some work.” He ran a finger over the inflamed red edges of his new cut. “None of the Barsavis are looking for me now.”

“Selling a sword?”

“Let us say, renting a knife.” Szaba slid his hand across the bar, and there were coins under his fingers. Four silvers. When Locke didn’t take them, he rolled his eyes. “Go on. They don’t have any blood on them. Even the figurative kind. I was bodyguarding, not body-making. Fuck. I shouldn’t have run those idiots off. Should’ve hired on as their guide.”

Locke nodded and made the coins vanish into his hands. “And the rest?”

“In prospect.” Szaba lowered his voice. “I appreciate you staking me, boy. I won’t let you down.”

Yet he would, not long after sea creatures fell from the sky over half the city.

10.

That summer was storm-lashed. As the weather built up, priests of Iono in their best silver-fringed robes made offerings from air and land to abate the fury of the waters. Blood ran from altars on the South Needle and the West Needle; bulls and goats and rabbits and chickens and pigeons and hawks spilled crimson lines down to the surging sea, and the priests danced in processions with their prayer-flags, blowing horns fashioned like sharks and swordfish and horned whales. They carried out these duties under gray-green skies, and then in spit-warm drizzle, and then bent under sheets of sweeping rain. So it went. Iono was called Stormbringer, not ‘storm-sparer’ or ‘merry pretender.’

Locke was with the work party sent up one afternoon in the pelting rain to fortify the lashings on the wine-mast, lest it fly away and impale someone (bad enough) or be rendered useless forever (far worse in Botari’s eyes). It was Cyril who broke from work with an ever-louder series of “fucking hells!” that eventually gave permission for Locke, Vilius, and Eight to slack off in awe along with him. To their north, the Five Towers were enfolded in bruised clouds and eerie lightning was rippling along the lines between the towers, making the glass pulse with brief flashes of the incandescence usually seen only at Falselight. To their south, wavering gray columns erupted from swirling mist and bridged the sea and sky.

“Waterspouts,” cried Eight. “Never seen any this close to the city before! I’m too sober for this degree of fuckery!”

“Well,” shouted Vilius, “we—"

Whatever he was going to say next turned into a pathetic muffled cry as something bounced off his head, rolling him backward over the wine-mast in a flail of arms and legs. Locke stared at the gray object on the rain-rippled roof for several seconds before his mind accepted that it was a fish. Even through the sound of the rain and the wind Locke could hear other things falling nearby. Someone in the street cried out in dismay after a particularly disquieting squelching crash.

“Treasure straight from Iono’s ass,” laughed Eight as she pulled Cyril up with one hand and plucked the fish that had laid him low in her other. “You lucky bastard! This is a Shank-flank. They have rows of spines under their fins, make your face swell up for days if they jab you!”

Cyril seemed to think the fish had delivered a wound that was heroic even without venom, and he led the flight back down through the rooftop hatch as the waterspouts continued assailing Camorr with flying wreckage and fish and gobs of seaweed, like an audience expressing its feelings about an inadequate play.

Canals flooded, boats foundered. Some parts of Camorr, well-served by Eldren catacombs or human engineering, drained swiftly. The Dregs was not one of those places. Ankle-deep water filled the Unbroken Jar for days on end, and to Locke’s infinite list of other chores was added the ongoing task of juggling jars, bottles, and boxes onto counters and shelves to keep them out of the general drench. He gave up wearing shoes for the duration, and tried not to think of what he was soaking his clammy, puckered feet in. The crowds were not dismayed; even soggy, they still wanted to drink bad wine and risk money on half-crazed bets. The Measure handed down odds for card tricks, arm wrestling, and even a blindfolded boxing match that splashed around for a quarter of an hour and injured three spectators. Two of them thought this was hilarious, and the one that didn’t was found bobbing gently in the back alley the next morning, throat slit and pockets empty.

“Here, I fetched you a new friend for dinner,” said Mazoc Szaba one evening as lightning flashed white through the open door. He handed a red and black squid to Locke, who passed it to Eight, who had set up a special cauldron. Anyone who presented something edible from the ongoing bombardment of sea creatures could claim a portion of Eight’s perpetually simmering storm stew. “Not all of these flavors are meant to bed down together,” she had confided to Locke, “but if you add enough garlic, butter, and booze you can pass off a rat’s peeled asshole as a dainty morsel.”

“Damn thing nearly took my head off not five minutes ago,” said Szaba as he braced himself to dash back a clipped copper’s worth of varnishy wine. “I might’ve been a martyr to Iono’s sense of humor. Must be my lucky night.” Down went the wine, and he grinned his unhealthy, wolfish grin. “In fact, I’m sure it is.”

“Oh don’t,” muttered Locke. “Please fucking don’t—”

“Measure!” Szaba rose, pounded the countertop, and splashed into the center of the room. “Measure! I have the money and there’s nobody after me tonight! I require, request, and demand an opportunity for redemption!”

“I should have contrived an accident to lose those green bottles,” Locke whispered to himself.

Nonetheless, after much jeering and haggling, Szaba was granted the same terms as his previous attempt at the serpent wine, and betting was brisk. Although he was wobbling by the third glass, he did manage to down the fourth. When he staggered back to Locke’s counter, his eyes had a boiled look, the bags beneath them had turned an alarming velvet-plum color, and his poison-scented breath made Locke’s last meal churn at the bottom of his throat.

“I can see you are thrilled, my young friend.” Szaba had received scattered applause and slaps on his back, which he took as though being anointed Duke of Camorr. Though he was now breathing like a man who’d just run half a mile, the creases on his face were pulled up in self-satisfaction. He pushed four silvers across the counter with a shaking hand. “Here, share the fruits of fame and a public life.”

“You had the money to do that before you tried to kill yourself again,” said Locke. He didn’t refuse the coins, of course.

“Mostly you seem to know what living in this city means, boy, but sometimes you worry me.” Szaba wobbled to his full height and rapped his knuckles on the counter in imitation of a stern tutor. “If you can walk out the door in a straight line when it’s time to go, it only means you didn’t sufficiently indulge yourself while you were here.”

Szaba matched deed to word and splashed out the door, bouncing once off the frame before catching himself and half-falling into the rain. Whether he’d done that just to be amusing or because he’d made such a severe mess of himself, Locke found it impossible to tell.

11.

“Sounds like so much nonsense to me,” said Cyril.

“All I’m saying is as I heard it.” Vilius, for some reason embarked on his annual hour or two of honest work, poured wine for a customer. “There was one loose in the flooded canal along Coin-Kisser’s Row, and they had them Berangias girls chase it down.”

“One what?” Locke, applying himself to the close scraping of the floorboards with a pumice stone, was so desperate for distraction that he dared to address the two brothers casually, and for once, neither of them took offense.

“Shark,” said Vilius. “Big wolf shark got to wandering the canals, and when the yellowjackets couldn’t bottle the situation up, they called for some of them contrarequialla. The Berangias sisters came out and speared it from a footbridge. The Capa wants to see ‘em now. Invitation to the Floating Grave means to hand out money or something.”

“Spearing sharks from a bridge,” said Cyril, “near the counting-houses and such? Doesn’t sound likely.”

“You got hit in the face by a fish that dropped out of the clouds last week, brother. Who are you to have opinions on what’s likely?”

When the great business of the storm was mostly spent, sail canvas had hung from towers and boats lay smashed in courtyards. Corpses, graves, garbage-stalls and shit-barges had been washed into the foaming gray lifeblood of the city, and while the sun was a welcome sight, the more it boiled off the flood, the more unpleasant surprises it revealed, and for a few days the air of Camorr was uncommonly noisome. Locke had been assigned to bury himself in the scraping and scrubbing of every wetted surface, lest they warp further. Locke had restrained himself from pointing out that a more ideal time for this chore would have been about eighty years before his own birth, and that one could no more roll a marble in a straight line across any floor in the Unbroken Jar than one could roll it from moon to moon in the sky.

“Next they’ll have you taking a clothes-iron to all the hills around the city, and to about as much effect,” came the voice of Mazoc Szaba from somewhere behind the counter above Locke.

“I think the same,” said Locke. “But I am not employed for philosophical reasons, I am employed to grind my knuckles into powder so Cyril and Vilius can grow old in comfort.”

“Wise lad,” said Vilius. “He’s learned a great deal, having been with us. What’s your yearning then, Szaba?”

“Two cups of that gut-shocking salamander piss you keep in your white wine casks,” said Szaba. “And then something green. Yes, tonight’s a night for something green.”

“White wine.” The note of concern in Vilius’ voice made Locke glance up at him. “But you look like shit, Szaba. You want to wrestle the serpent tonight, I’m betting against you.”

“I’ll be glad to have the action.”

That turned out not to be true. Szaba pledged himself to four glasses again, staking himself with twelve silvers. The betting was heavy against him, with the Measure adjusting the odds several times until finally cutting short the wagering before the numbers broke entirely. Szaba did well enough with the first two glasses, but halfway through the third suffered a complete loss of dignity. Spasming, sobbing, and retching he sank to his knees, and would have sprawled lengthwise on the floor if Locke hadn’t come running to buttress him and haul him out into the alley. The door closed on cheers behind them.

“Why do you do it?” he whispered. “Why do you grind yourself up like this? You’re getting worse at taking that stuff in, not better.”

“To be the center of something,” gasped Szaba, waving for Locke to set him down against a wall. “To be the reason for something. To be in everyone’s eyes, even if it’s just for a few minutes.”

“Everyone thinks you’re a fool. They pay in to see you vomit your guts all over your boots.”

“Who are they, Locke? What are their names, those people at those tables? Name them. What have they done? Could you go round that room now and tell me anything about them, anything true, anything remembered?”

“Do you want a sweaty tavern full of idiots to remember you, or do you want to live?”

“I don’t think I have much longer for the one, so I might as well seek the other.”

“Fucking hells, lay off the green poison. I’ll teach you to play Catch-the-Duke or something.”

“Not my style.” Szaba patted him on the back, and there was shockingly little strength in the gesture. “Go on, now, before you’re missed. You can only get away with dallying in my company on nights when I’m the hero.”

12.

Three nights later, a quiet evening, uncommonly cool, the sort of night the gods might offer in recompense for all the raining fish and flooded cellars, if only to shut mortal whining up for a while. Falselight was going dim when Mazoc Szaba came in through the propped-open door. He was slump-shouldered and discomposed, and when he halted before the counter he seemed to try words out a few times before he found the ones that suited him.

“Here,” he said softly, as he reached under his jacket and handed Locke a thin dagger in a businesslike scabbard, free of ornaments. “That good for one cup of white?”

“Surely you have need of that.”

“I’ve found the last work I’m likely to find, Locke. It’s this or my clothes, so far as my trading posture is concerned. Trust me, the blade smells better.”

Locke was about to take the weapon when he felt that nameless thief-instinct, the self-preserving sense that came from nowhere in the vicinity of danger, and when Locke spotted the danger he felt as though his heart were paper and it had just been folded in half. A shadow loomed by the open door to the back alley, and two similar shadows stood just outside the front door.

The woman who walked in between the shadows killed conversation. Anyone seeing her stopped talking, stopped laughing, set their cups down even if they were mid-sip. Thjs made the people near them look, and swiftly join the silence. She had black feathers braided into her ice-pale hair, black ashes drawn in lines across her ice-pale face, and black mail set into the panels of her long leather coat. A raven tattoo filled the left side of her neck, and by that Locke recognized her. Hanni Iradu, not just a Grave Walker, but garrista of the Grave Walkers. Doubtless she had weapons tucked away somewhere, but here and now she was not a person who had any need to show them off.

“What the fuck have you done?” whispered Locke.

“I offended the Barsavis once before.” Szaba’s smile didn’t move many of the lines on his face. “They’re not the sort of bank that extends credit a second time.”

“You seem to understand what has to happen,” said Iradu, speaking Vadran. Locke decided it was wisest to pretend he didn’t understand.

“It was good of him to send you to be the one to take me home,” said Szaba.

“You know he sent me because he has to show the city that you’re no longer worth his personal attention. And the Floating Grave isn’t home. It’s just pain along the way.”

“Resolution was easier a few minutes ago,” said Szaba, returning to Therin. “Do you really have to trouble yourself by marching me all the way over there?”

“You have to pay for your fun.” Hanni Iradu put one hand on Szaba’s shoulder, and with the other she gently took the sheathed dagger from him. “You know this. You have to be an example.”

“I could just… I could be an example right here. Make it easy for you. Easier for both of us.”

“Rude to make a mess on someone else’s floor, Szaba. Own your fate.”

“I am,” he said. “Measure. Measure! I, uh, I’m afraid I can no longer offer myself to the house as an amusement. This has to be my last performance. If it please you, I would like… I would like to drink an entire bottle of serpent wine.”

That caused a stir.

“Szaba, come.”

“Iradu, your honor, don’t deliver me to Sage Kindness. Please… let me do this my way. You and Anjais will still have what you require of me—”

“Hanni Iradu of the Grave Walkers! I am the Measure, of the Black Breeze. Welcome.” The Measure’s voice, echoing from her alcove, was louder and stronger than Locke had ever heard it. “We know why you must have come here tonight, and we serve the Capa in all things. But this is still the house of the Black Breeze. If Mazoc Szaba will drink the serpent wine, a bottle shall be provided.”

“Thank you,” said Szaba. “I—”

“This is not a gift,” interrupted the Measure. “This is a house of chance, and the game must be paid for. There are no odds. You will not survive the bottle. Your stake is twelve solons.”

“I don’t… I don’t have any money, I’m afraid.”

“The house takes the position that you will lose. All you need is for someone willing to bet that you will win.”

Szaba turned slowly, wide-eyed, hands out to everyone in the room. Whoever staked him was as good as throwing twelve solons into the sea. Weeks or months of pay for an ordinary trade. Weeks or months of pay for the sake of Mazoc Szaba.

“Is there no one?” called the Measure.

Then again, after a few moments of silence: “Is there no one?”

Locke closed his eyes and brought his head down on the counter hard enough to cause the sensation of a bright flash behind his eyelids. He raised his right hand.

“No,” whispered Szaba. “No, not you. I’ve asked too much. I’m sorry. I’ll just go.”

“Gods, put your hand down, you fool fucking boy,” croaked old Botari. “Don’t be silly.”

Locke raised his head, took a deep breath, and glared at Botari. “The Gentlemen Bastards of the Temple District,” he said, “pledge twelve solons that Mazoc Szaba will successfully drink an entire bottle of serpent wine.”

“Sworn and done,” said the Measure.

Locke rattled his various coins onto the counter until the sum was before him, his reward for all the stacking and fetching and polishing, for dangling over the canal, for surviving the flooding and the rains of fish. Vilius took the money away, shocked to see so much of it, and Cyril broke the waxed cork on a jade-green bottle before passing it over to Mazoc Szaba.

“Well,” said Szaba. He bowed his head to Locke, then spun to the rest of the room, bottle held high. “Well. You wouldn’t stake me, and I suppose that’s only fair. But at least raise your cups. I’ll show you Camorri mutts and vagabonds how a man goes back to his ancestors. I barely know any of you, but now you all know me. Mazoc Szaba. You’ll never forget for as long as you live. MAZOC SZABA!”

Many cups around the room did, at least, go up, and many drank as he drank.

He wasn’t delicate. He set to the bottle with a will, throwing his head back and pouring the serpent wine in, guzzling it, throat bobbing. A quarter of the bottle vanished, and he shuddered. Another quarter, and he coughed, sputtered, gasped. Sparing only a minute to recover himself, he went on, now in single gulps interrupted by spasms. Green wine ran down his face and beaded on his chin. Still, he drank. Pink wetness seeped from his eyes, and then from the corners of his mouth. Groaning, he drank and then spun like a man struck in the head by a stone.

Mazoc Szaba slumped against the bar, took one last swig, and fell over backward. The bottle hit the uneven floor and rolled around beside him. Perhaps one cup of the green venom remained.

Szaba died in pain, spitting blood, but he had forced so much of the stuff into himself so fast that the end was quick. After perhaps a minute, his ragged, desperate breaths drew down. Another minute, and the faint motions of his chest stilled.

Hanni Iradu stood over him all the while. At last she looked up, met Locke’s eyes, and nodded respectfully.

“The Grave Walkers are satisfied. The hospitality of the Black Breeze has been memorable. Send to the Temple of Fortunate Waters; let Vadran priests fetch this man. His flesh should return to the sea. I will hear of it, if it is not so.”

“It will be so,” muttered Botari.

“Blessed is the one who remembers a thief, for they shall inherit the night,” said Iradu.

“Yes,” said Locke. “They shall inherit the night.”

“I thought I noticed you paying a little too much attention to my Vadran.” Iradu smiled at him, then turned for the door. “Be careful, boy.”

Locke sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I suppose I’ll find something to cover the body—”

“No,” said Botari. “No, Gentleman Bastard. It’s time you went back to the Temple District.”

Surprised, Locke nearly opened his mouth to argue and then realized the formality of the dismissal. He nodded.

“You can tell your master that you were handy enough with a mop-bucket,” said the old man. “And that you’re adequate at hanging from a wine-mast, I suppose. Cyril, you see to covering the body.”

“If I must, Father.”

“And throw Mazoc’s bottle out. Throw every bottle of that green shit we have out. Anyone so much as hints at placing a bet on that stuff ever again, I’ll hit them so hard their teeth will fly out their eye sockets.”

13.

Father Chains stared down at Locke for a long moment after the boy finished his description of the events leading up to his dismissal and return.

“So you were sent out with instructions to bring twenty solons for Capa Barsavi, whom you serve as I serve, and in actuality you have returned with—”

“Two.”

“Two. And how do you explain this?”

“I know I’ve failed you,” said Locke. “I know I’ve disobeyed my instructions. I just… he was going to be tortured if he went to the Floating Grave. You know what the Capa does when he thinks a lesson is in order.”

“Mazoc Szaba put himself in the way of the Capa’s justice. Again, how do you explain what you’ve done?”

“I don’t understand much about being a priest,” said Locke. “In fact, I don’t understand anything yet, but I know what you’ve told me. I know how you think. And I just knew… I knew standing there, that if I shut up like everyone else and pretended it wasn’t my business, I would remember it forever. And I would never feel like I was a real priest, ever. I would never feel like I deserved… to find out whatever it is I don’t know yet.”

Chains loomed over him, settled his big hands on Locke’s shoulders, and sighed out a heavy breath.

“You are a vexation,” he said. “You are a terror and a frustration and you know it because I tell you these things. But perhaps… perhaps I am remiss in not also telling you often enough how very, very proud you make me.”

Locke had reached an age where he did not frequently find himself hugging Father Chains, but suddenly he was enfolded in the old man’s robes and hands, shaking with simple relief of being back home, to be alive, to have made himself do something he barely understood, to not have disappointed in doing it.

“I’m sorry I screwed up the money,” he said.

“I’ll spot you eighteen solons for the Capa. Your two makes twenty; you can give it to him yourself in a couple nights. Doubtless he’ll have been told about what happened at the Unbroken Jar, and he might ask you questions. Be ready to answer.”

Locke nodded.

“You’ll owe me, for the eighteen. It’s not a gift. You’ll pay it back plus a quarter on the principal, compounding. Compounding daily.”

“Ouch,” whispered Locke. “Punishment numbers.”

“You did the right thing, Locke. And I need you to see and choose the right things whenever you have a choice.”

Chains stepped back, smiled, and cracked his knuckles.

“But I also need you to understand that when you do the right thing, there are consequences. Consequences that can bite you in the ass good and hard, my boy. Good and fucking hard.”

Content

Scott Lynch
Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent. Part 2

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