peter down to a soft murmur. Barsavi nodded appreciatively.
“I trust we’re enjoying ourselves?”
There was a general outburst of cheers, applause, and foot-stomping. Locke privately wondered how wise that really was in a ship of any sort. He was careful to applaud along with the crowd.
“Feels marvelous to be out from under a cloud, doesn’t it?”
Another cheer; Locke scratched at his temporary beard, now damp with sweat. There was a sudden sharp pain in his stomach, right where one of the younger Barsavis had given him particular consideration with a fist. The heat and the smell were triggering strange tickly feelings of nausea in the back of his throat, and he’d had enough of that particular sensation to last the rest of his life. Sourly, he coughed into his hands and prayed for just a few more hours of strength.
One of the Berangias sisters stepped over beside the capa, her shark’s-teeth bangles shining in the light of the hall’s chandeliers, and whispered into his ear. He listened for a few seconds, and then he smiled.
“Cheryn,” he shouted, “proposes that I allow her and her sister to entertain us. Shall I?”
The answering cheer was twice as forceful (and twice as genuine, to Locke’s ears) as anything yet heard. The wooden walls reverberated with it, and Locke flinched.
“Let’s have a teeth show, then!”
All was chaos for the next few minutes. Dozens of Barsavi’s people pushed revelers back, clearing an area at the center of the floor about ten yards on a side. Revelers were pressed up the stairs until the balconies creaked beneath their weight; observation holes were cranked open so those on the top deck could peer down at the proceedings. Locke was pushed back into his corner more firmly than ever.
Men with hooked poles drew up the wooden panels of the floor, revealing the dark water of Camorr Bay. A thrill of anticipation and alarm passed through the crowd at the thought of what might be swimming down there. The unquiet spirits of eight Full Crowns, for one thing, thought Locke.
As the final panels in the center of the opening square were removed, almost everyone present could see the little support platforms on which they’d rested, not one wider than a man’s hand-spread. They were spaced about five feet apart. Barsavi’s arena for his own private teeth shows—a challenge for any contrarequialla, even a pair as experienced as the Berangias sisters.
Cheryn and Raiza, old hands at teasing a crowd, were stripping out of their leather doublets, bracers, and collars. They took their graceful time while the capa’s subjects hooted approval, hoisted cups and glasses, and in some cases even shouted unlikely propositions.
Anjais hurried forward with a little packet of alchemical powders in his hands. He dumped this into the water, then took a prudent step back. This was the “summons”—a potent mix of substances that would rouse the shark’s ire and maintain it for the duration of the contest. Blood in the water could attract and enrage a shark, but the summons would make it utterly drunk with the urge to attack—to leap, thrash, and roll at the women jumping back and forth across their little platforms.
The Berangias sisters stepped forward to nearly the edge of the artificial pool, holding their traditional weapons: the pick-head axes and the short javelins. Anjais and Pachero stood behind them and just to their left; the Capa remained standing by his chair, clapping his hands and grinning broadly.
A black fin broke the surface of the pool; a tail thrashed. There was a brief splash of water, and the electric atmosphere of the crowd intensified. Locke could feel it washing over him—lust and fear entwined, a powerful, animalistic sensation. The crowd had backed off about two yards from any edge of the pool, but still some in the front ranks were shaking nervously, and a few were trying to push their way farther back through the crowd, to the delight and derision of those around them.
In truth, the shark couldn’t have been longer than five or six feet; some of those used at the Shifting Revel reached twice that length. Still, a fish like that could easily maim on the leap, and if it dragged a person down into the water with it, well, raw size would mean little in such an uneven contest.
The Berangias sisters threw up their arms, then turned as one to the capa. The sister on the right—Raiza? Cheryn? Locke had never learned the trick of telling them apart…. And at the