The Gentleman Bastard Series (51 page)

Warm blood soaked his boot as he pulled it free, and now the wounded spiders were scuttling up right behind their fallen counterparts, hissing and clicking in anger.

One shoved its way in front of the other and lunged at Jean, legs wide, head up to bare its curving fangs. Jean brought both the Sisters down in a hammer blow, blade sides reversed, smashing the spider’s head down into the wet stones and stopping it in its tracks. Ichor spurted; Jean felt it spattering his neck and forehead, and did his best to ignore it.

One damn monster left. Incensed at the delay they’d caused him, Jean bellowed and leapt into the air. Arms spread, he landed with both of his feet in the middle of the last creature’s carapace. It exploded wetly beneath him, folding the flailing legs up at an unnatural angle. They beat their last few pulses of life against his legs as he ground in his heels, growling.

“Gah!” cried Bug, who’d gotten a good soaking from something blue and previously circulating through a salt devil; Jean didn’t waste a second in tossing the boy one of his gore-soaked Sisters before jumping down into the water once again. The cask had floated about ten feet farther south; Jean splashed frantically toward it and secured it with his left hand. Then he began to piston his right arm up and down, hacking at the wood of the barrel’s cover with his hatchet.

“Bug,” he cried, “kindly make sure there aren’t any more of those damn things creeping up on us!”

There was a splash behind Jean as Bug hopped back into the waterway. A few seconds later the boy came up beside the cask and steadied it with his own thin arms. “None that I can see, Jean. Hurry.”

“I am”—crack, crack, crack—“fucking hurrying.” His hatchet blade bit through the wood at last; horse urine poured out into the water and Bug gagged. Working furiously, Jean widened the hole, then managed to pry off the end of the cask entirely. A wave of the foul yellow-slick stuff swept out across his chest. Tossing his hatchet away without a further thought, he reached inside and tugged out the motionless body of Locke Lamora.

Jean checked him frantically for cuts, slashes, or raised purple welts; his neck seemed to be quite intact.

Jean heaved Locke rather ungently up onto the stone walkway beside the dead spiders, some parts of which were still twitching, then pushed himself up out of the water to crouch beside Locke. He wrenched off Locke’s mantle and cloak; Bug appeared at his side just in time to yank them away and toss them in the water. Jean tore open Locke’s gray vest and began thumping on his chest.

“Bug,” he gasped. “Bug! Get up here and push his legs in for me. His warm humors are all snuffed out. Let’s get a rhythm going and maybe we can rekindle them. Gods, if he lives I swear I’ll get ten books on physik and memorize every single one.”

Bug clambered out of the water and began pumping Locke’s legs, moving them in and out one at a time, while Jean alternately pressed on Locke’s stomach, pounded on his chest, and slapped him on the cheeks. “Come on, gods damn it,” Jean muttered. “Be stubborn, you skinny little—”

Locke’s back arched convulsively, and harsh wet coughing noises exploded out of his throat; his hands scrabbled weakly at the stone, and he rolled over onto his left side. Jean sat back and sighed with relief, oblivious to the puddle of spider blood he’d settled into.

Locke vomited into the water, retched and shuddered, then vomited again. Bug knelt beside him, steadying him by the shoulders. For several minutes, Locke lay there shaking, breathing heavily and coughing.

“Oh, gods,” he said at last in a small hoarse voice. “Oh, gods. My eyes. I can barely see. Is that water?”

“Yes, running water.” Jean reached over and took one of Locke’s arms.

“Then get me in there. Thirteen gods, get this foulness
off
me.”

Locke rolled into the canal with a splash before Jean or Bug could even move to assist him; he dunked his head beneath the dark stream several times, then began tearing off his remaining clothes, until he was wearing nothing but a white undertunic and his gray breeches.

“Better?” asked Jean.

“I suppose I must be.” Locke retched again. “My eyes sting, my nose and throat burn, my chest hurts, I’ve got a pounding black headache the size of Therim Pel, I got slapped around by the entire Barsavi family, I’m covered in horse piss, and it looks like the Gray King just did something pretty clever at our expense.” He set his head against the edge of the stone pathway and coughed a few more times. When he raised his head again, he noticed the spider carcasses for the first time and jerked backward. “Ugh. Gods. Looks like there’s things I’ve missed, too.”

“Salt devils,” said Jean. “A whole pack of them, working together. They came on looking for a fight. Suicidal, like.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Locke.

“One thing could explain it,” Jean replied.

“A conspiracy of the gods,” Locke muttered. “Oh.
Sorcery
.”

“Yes, that bloody Bondsmage. If he can tame a scorpion hawk, he could—”

“But what if it’s just this place?” interrupted Bug. “You’ve heard the stories.”

“No need to fret about stories,” said Locke, “when there’s a live mage known to have it in for us. Jean’s right. I didn’t get stuffed in that barrel as a criticism of my playacting, and those biting bitches weren’t here for a rest holiday. You were both meant to be dead as well, or if not dead—”

“Scared off,” said Jean. “Distracted. The better for you to drown.”

“Seems plausible.” Locke rubbed at his stinging eyes once again. “Amazing how every time I think my tolerance for this affair has reached a final low, I find something new to hate. Calo and Galdo … we need to get to them.”

“They could be in a world of shit,” agreed Jean.

“They already are, but we’ll face it better once we’re back together.”

Locke attempted to heave himself up out of the water and failed. Jean reached down and pulled him up by the collar of his tunic. Locke nodded his thanks and slowly stood up, shaking. “I’m afraid my strength seems to have fled. I’m sorry, Jean.”

“Don’t be. You’ve taken a hell of a lot of abuse tonight. I’m just pleased we broke you out of that thing before it was too late.”

“I’m indebted to the pair of you, believe me. That was … It would have been …” Locke shuddered and coughed again. “It was pretty gods-damned awful.”

“I can only suppose,” said Jean. “Shall we go?”

“With all haste. Back out the way you two came in, quietly. Barsavi’s crowd may still be in the area. And keep your eyes open for, ah, birds.”

“Too right. We came in through a sort of crawlway, western canal-side.” Jean slapped his forehead and looked around. “Damn me, I’ve mislaid the Sisters.”

“Never fear,” said Bug, holding them up. “I figured you’d want them back, so I kept a watch on them.”

“Much obliged, Bug,” said Jean. “I’m of a mind to use them on some people before this night is done.”

3

RUSTWATER WAS as dead as ever when they snuck out the crawlway and scrabbled up onto the canal bank just to the west of the Echo Hole. Barsavi’s procession had vanished. And although the three Gentlemen Bastards crouched low and scanned the occulted sky for any hint of a swooping hawk, they caught not a glimpse.

“Let’s make for Coalsmoke,” said Locke. “Past Beggar’s Barrow. We can steal a boat and slip home through the culvert.” The drainage culvert on the south side of the Temple District, just beneath the House of Perelandro, had a concealed slide mechanism within the cage that covered it from the outside. The Gentlemen Bastards could open it at will to come and go quietly.

“Good idea,” said Jean. “I’m not comfortable being about on the streets and bridges.”

They crept south, grateful for the low, warm mists that swirled around them. Jean had his hatchets out and was moving his head from side to side, watchful as a cat on a swaying clothesline. He led them over a bridge, with Locke constantly stumbling and falling behind, then down the southeastern shore of the Quiet. Here the lightless black heap of Beggar’s Barrow loomed in the mists to their left, and the wet stink of pauper’s graves filled the air.

“Not a watchman,” whispered Locke. “Not a Shades’ Hill boy or girl. Not a soul. Even for this neighborhood, that’s damn peculiar.”

“Has anything about tonight been right yet?” Jean set as rapid a pace as he could, and they soon crossed another bridge, south into Coalsmoke. Locke labored to keep up, clutching his aching stomach and ribs. Bug brought up their rear, constantly peering over his shoulder.

On the northeastern edge of Coalsmoke there was a line of weathered docks, sagging stairs, and crumbling stone quays. All the larger, nicer boats and barges were locked and chained, but a few small cockleshells bobbed here and there, secured by nothing more than rope. In a city full of such little boats, no sane thief would bother stealing one—most of the time.

They clambered into the first one that chanced to have an oar; Locke collapsed at the stern, while Bug took up the oar and Jean cast off the rope.

“Thank you, Bug.” Jean squeezed himself down into the wet bottom of the little wooden craft; all three of them made for a tight fit. “I’ll trade off with you in just a bit.”

“What, no crack about my moral education?”

“Your moral education’s over.” Jean stared up into the sky as the dockside receded and Bug took them out into the canal’s heart. “Now you’re going to learn a thing or two about war.”

4

UNSEEN AND undisturbed, Jean quietly paddled them up against the north bank of the canal just south of their temple. The House of Perelandro was nothing more than a dark impression of mass, lightless in the silver fog above their heads.

“Smartly, smartly,” the big man muttered to himself as he brought them abreast with the drainage culvert; it was about a yard up from the water, with an opening five feet in diameter. It led more or less directly to a concealed passage just behind the ladder that led down from the temple itself. Bug slipped a hand past the iron bars at the end of the culvert and tripped the hidden locking mechanism. He then prepared to climb in.

“I’ll go first,” he said, just before Jean grabbed him by the collar.

“I think not. The Wicked Sisters will go first. You sit down and keep the boat steady.”

Bug did so, pouting, and Locke smiled. Jean pulled himself up into the culvert and began crawling into the darkness.

“You can have the honor of going second, Bug,” said Locke. “I might need a hand pulling me up.”

When all three of them were wedged safely into the pipe, Locke turned and nudged the little boat back out into midcanal with his feet. The current would carry it to the Via Camorrazza, lost in the mists, until someone ran into it with a larger boat or claimed it as a windfall. Locke then slid the pipe cover closed and locked it once again. The Gentlemen Bastards actually oiled the hinges on the grate to keep their comings and goings quiet.

They crawled forward into blackness, surrounded by the gentle echoes of their own breathing and the soft noise of scuffing cloth. There was a quiet click as Jean operated the hidden entrance into the burrow; then a line of pale silver light spilled in.

Jean stepped out onto the wooden floor of the dim passage; just to his right, the rungs ran up into the hidden entrance beneath what had once been Father Chains’ sleeping pallet. Despite Jean’s best effort to move quietly, the floor creaked slightly as he moved forward. Locke slipped out into the passage behind him, his heart pounding.

The illumination was too dim. The walls had been golden for as long as he’d known the place.

Jean crept forward, hatchets bobbing in his fists. At the far end of the passage, he whirled around the corner, crouched low—and then stood straight up, growling,
“Shit!”

The kitchen had been thoroughly trashed.

The spice cabinets were overturned; broken glass and shattered crockery littered the floor. The storage cupboards hung open, empty; the water barrel had been dumped on the tiles. The gilded chairs were torn apart, thrown into a heap in one corner. The beautiful chandelier that had swung above their heads for as long as any of them had lived within the glass burrow was a total ruin. It dangled now by a few wires, its planets and constellations smashed, its armillary paths bent beyond all possible repair. The sun that had burned at the heart of it all was cracked like an egg; the alchemical oils that had lit it from within had seeped onto the table.

Locke and Jean stood at the edge of the entrance passage, staring in shock. Bug rounded the corner, hot for action against unseen foes, and came up short between them. “I … gods.
Gods
.”

“Calo?” Locke abandoned all thoughts of sneaking about. “Galdo! Calo! Are you here?”

Jean swept aside the heavy curtain to the door that led to the Wardrobe. He didn’t say anything or make any noise, but the Wicked Sisters fell out of his hands and clattered against the floor tiles.

The Wardrobe, too, had been ransacked. All the rows of fine clothing and costume garments, all the hats and cravats and breeches and hose, all the waistcoats and vests and thousands of crowns worth of accessories—all of it was gone. The mirrors were smashed; the Masque Box was overturned, its contents strewn and broken across the floor.

Calo and Galdo lay beside it, on their backs, staring upward in the semidarkness. Their throats were slashed from ear to ear, a pair of smooth gashes—identical twin wounds.

5

JEAN FELL forward onto his knees.

Bug tried to squeeze past Locke, and Locke shoved him back into the kitchen with all the feeble strength he could muster, saying, “No, Bug, don’t …” But it was already too late. The boy sat down hard against the edge of the witchwood table and broke into sobs.

Gods
, Locke thought as he stumbled past Jean into the Wardrobe.
Gods, I have been a fool. We should have packed up and run.

“Locke …,” Jean whispered, and then he sprawled forward onto the ground, shaking and shuddering as though he were having some sort of fit.

“Jean! Gods, what now?” Locke crouched beside the bigger man and placed a hand beneath his round, heavy chin. Jean’s pulse was pounding wildly. He looked up at Locke with wide eyes, his mouth opening and closing, failing to spit out words. Locke’s mind raced.