The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Scott Lynch Page 0,149

boy’s knees. Tesso shoved and slapped at Locke, struggling to part the two of them. Failing, he began punching Locke in the teeth and on the top of his head—heavy blows that left Locke seeing flashes of light.

“What the hell is this, Lamora?” Tesso grunted with the effort of supporting Locke’s weight in addition to his own. Finally, as Locke had hoped and expected, he threw himself forward. Locke landed on his back in the gravel, with Tesso atop him. The air burst out of Locke’s lungs, and the whole world seemed to shudder. “This is ridiculous. You can’t fight me. And now you can’t run! Give up, Lamora!”

Locke spit blood into Tesso’s face. “I don’t have to fight you and I don’t have to run.” He grinned wildly. “I just have to keep you here… until Jean gets back.”

Tesso gasped and looked around. Out, on the Shifting Market one small cockleshell boat was heading straight toward them. The plump shape of Jean Tannen was clearly visible within it, hauling rapidly on the oars.

“Oh, shit. You little bastard. Let me go, let me go, let me go!”

Tesso punctuated this with a series of punches. Soon enough Locke was bleeding from his nose, his lips, his ears, and somewhere under his hair. Tesso was pounding him but good, yet he continued to cling madly to the older boy. His head was whirling with the combination of pain and triumph; Locke actually started laughing, high and gleeful and perhaps a little bit mad.

“I don’t have to fight or run,” he cackled. “I changed the rules of the game. I just have to keep you here… asshole. Here… until… Jean gets back.”

“Gods dammit,” Tesso hissed, and he redoubled his assault on Locke, punching and spitting and biting.

“Keep hitting,” Locke sputtered. “You just keep hitting. I can take it all day. You just keep… hitting me… until…Jean gets back!”

III

Revelation

“Nature never deceives us;

it is always we who deceive ourselves.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

From Émile ou De l’éducation

Chapter Nine

A Curious Tale for Countess Amberglass

1

AT HALF PAST the tenth hour of the evening on Duke’s Day, as low dark clouds fell in above Camorr, blotting out the stars and the moons, Doña Sofia Salvara was being hoisted up into the sky to have a late tea with Doña Angiavesta Vorchenza, dowager countess of Amberglass, at the top of the great lady’s Elderglass tower.

The passenger cage rattled and swayed, and Sofia clung to the black iron bars for support. The sweaty Hangman’s Wing fluttered at her hooded coat as she stared south. All of the city lay spread beneath her, black and gray from horizon to horizon, suffused with the glow of fire and alchemy. This was a point of quiet pride for her every time she had the chance to take in this view from one of the Five Towers. The Eldren had built glass wonders for men to claim; engineers had crafted buildings of stone and wood in the Eldren ruins to make the cities their own; Bondsmagi pretended to the powers the Eldren must have once held. But it was alchemy that drove back the darkness every evening; alchemy that lit the commonest home and the tallest tower alike, cleaner and safer than natural fire. It was her art that tamed the night.

At last, her long ascent ended; the cage rattled to a halt beside an embarkation platform four-fifths of the way up Amberglass’ full height. The wind sighed mournfully in the strange fluted arches at the peak of the tower. Two footmen in cream-white waistcoats and immaculate white gloves and breeches helped her out of the cage, as they might have assisted her from a carriage down on the ground. Once she was safely on the platform, the two men bowed from the waist.

“M’lady Salvara,” said the one on the left, “my mistress bids you welcome to Amberglass.”

“Most kind,” said Doña Sofia.

“If it would please you to wait on the terrace, she will join you momentarily.”

The same footman led the way past a half dozen servants in similar livery, who stood panting beside the elaborate arrangement of gears, levers, and chains they worked to haul the cargo cage up and down. They, too, bowed as she passed; she favored them with a smile and an acknowledging wave. It never hurt to be pleasant to the servants in charge of that particular operation.

Doña Vorchenza’s terrace was a wide crescent of transparent Elderglass jutting out from the north face of her tower, surrounded by brass safety rails. Doña Sofia