The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Lynch, Scott Page 0,75

shuttered every major canal against intrusion, the Wooden Waste was open to the sea on its south side.

At the heart of the Waste floated a fat, dismasted hulk, sixty yards long and nearly half as wide, anchored firmly in place by chains leading down into the water; two at the bow and two at the stern. Camorr had never built anything so heavy and ungainly; that vessel was one of the more optimistic products of the arsenals of distant Tal Verrar, just as Chains had told Locke many years before. Wide silk awnings now covered its high, flat castle decks; beneath those canopies parties could be thrown that rivaled the pleasure pavilions of Jerem for their decadence. But at the moment the decks were clear of everything but the cloaked shapes of armed men, peering out through the rain—Locke could see at least a dozen of them, standing in groups of two or three with longbows and crossbows at hand.

There was human movement here and there throughout the Waste; some of the less damaged vessels housed families of squatters, and some of them were being openly used as observation points by more teams of hard-looking men. Vitale navigated through the twisting channels between larger wrecks, carefully making obvious hand gestures at the men on guard whenever the gondola passed them.

“Gray King got another one last night,” he muttered, straining against his pole. “Lots of twitchy boys with big murder-pieces keeping an eye on us right now, that’s for damn sure.”

“Another one?” Calo narrowed his eyes. “We hadn’t heard yet. Who got it?”

“Tall Tesso, from the Full Crowns. They found him up in Rustwater, nailed to the wall of an old shop, balls cut off. His blood ran out, is what it looked like.”

Locke and Jean exchanged a glance, and Nervous Vitale grunted.

“Acquainted, were you?”

“After a fashion,” said Locke, “and some time ago.”

Locke pondered. Tesso was—had been—garrista of the Full Crowns; one of Barsavi’s big earners, and a close friend of the capa’s younger son, Pachero. Nobody in Camorr should have been able to touch him (save only Barsavi and the Spider), yet that damned invisible lunatic calling himself the Gray King had touched him in no uncertain terms.

“That’s six,” said Jean, “isn’t it?”

“Seven,” said Locke. “There haven’t been this many dead gods-damned garristas since you and I were five years old.”

“Heh,” said Vitale, “and to think I once envied you, Lamora, even with this tiny little gang of yours.”

Locke glared at him, willing the puzzle to come together in his head and not quite succeeding. Seven gang leaders in two months; all of them given the distance, but otherwise having little in common. Locke had long taken comfort in his own lack of importance to the capa’s affairs, but now he began to wonder. Might he be on someone’s list? Did he have some unguessed value to Barsavi that the Gray King might want to end with a crossbow bolt? How many others were between him and that bolt?

“Damn,” said Jean, “as if things needed to get more complicated.”

“Maybe we should take care of…current business.” Galdo had shifted against the side of the gondola and was looking around as he spoke. “And then maybe we should get lost for a while. See Tal Verrar, or Talisham…or at least get you out, Locke.”

“Nonsense.” Locke spat over the side of the boat. “Sorry, Galdo. I know it seems like wisdom, but do the sums. The capa would never forgive our running out in his desperate hour. He’d rescind the distance and put us under the thumb of the most graceless pig-hearted motherfucker he could find. We can’t run as long as he stays. Hell, Nazca would break my knees with a mallet before anyone else did anything.”

“You have my sympathy, boys.” Vitale shifted his pole from hand to hand, using precise shoves to warp the gondola around a chunk of debris too large to ignore. “Canal work ain’t easy, but at least nobody wants me dead for more’n the usual reasons. Did you want me to leave you at the Grave or at the quay?”

“We need to see Harza,” said Locke.

“Oh, he’s sure to be in a rare mood today.” Vitale began poling hard for the northern edge of the Waste, where a few stone docks jutted out before a row of shops and rooming houses. “The quay it is, then.”

4

THE PAWNSHOP of No-Hope Harza was one of the major landmarks of the reign of Capa Barsavi. While there were many shops