The Lies of Locke Lamora - By Scott Lynch Page 0,236

beside the glittering pyramid of wineglasses. “This end of the bar is temporarily closed. Make it so,” he said. Turning to his other soldiers, he said, “Cordon this area off fifteen or twenty feet back. Don’t let anyone else get close, in the name of the duke.”

Doña Sofia ducked under the velvet rope and crouched beside the sculpted pyramid, which was about three feet tall. The soft lights continued to flash and shift behind the glass windows set into its faces.

“Captain Reynart,” she said, “you had a pair of gloves at your belt, I seem to recall. May I borrow them?”

Reynart passed her a pair of black leather gloves, and she slipped them on. “It’s rarely wise to take too much for granted. Contact poisons are child’s play,” she said absently, and ran her fingers across the surface of the sculpture while peering at it closely. She shifted position several times, her frown deepening with each new examination.

“I can’t see any breach in the casing,” she said, standing up again. “Not so much as a seam; the workmanship is very good. If the device is intended to issue forth smoke, I can’t imagine how the smoke would escape.” She tapped a gloved finger against one of the glass windows.

“Unless…” She tapped the window again. “This is what we call ornamental glass; it’s thin and fragile. It’s not commonly used in sculpture, and we never use it in the laboratory, because it can’t take heat…”

Her head whirled toward Locke; her almond-blonde ringlets spun like a halo. “Did you say there were pots of fire-oil in this device?”

“So I heard,” he replied, “from a man very eager not to lose his tongue.”

“That might be it,” she said. “Fire-oil could generate a great deal of heat inside a metal enclosure. It would shatter the glass—shatter the glass and let out the smoke! Captain, draw your rapier, please. I should like to use it.”

Concealing any qualms he might have had, Reynart drew his rapier and carefully passed it to her, hilt first. She examined the silver butt of the weapon, nodded, and used it to smash in the glass. It broke with a high-pitched tinkle. She reversed the rapier and used the blade to sweep away the jagged fragments from around the edges of the window, then passed it back to Reynart. There were mutters and exclamations from the watching crowd, who were barely being kept in check by Reynart’s thin arc of apologetic blackjackets.

“Careful, Sofia,” said Don Lorenzo.

“Don’t teach a sailor to shit in the ocean,” she muttered as she peered into the window, which was about eight inches wide at its base, tapering slightly toward the top. She reached in with one gloved hand and touched one of the shifting alchemical lights; she twisted her wrist and drew it out.

“Not even attached to anything,” she said as she set it on the ground beside her. “Oh, gods,” she whispered when she peeked back into the window without the light in her way. Her hand came up to her mouth and she stumbled back to her feet, shaking.

Doña Vorchenza stepped up directly beside her. “Well?”

“It’s Wraithstone,” said Doña Salvara with disgust. “The whole thing is full of it. I can see it in there—so much of it I can smell the powder.” She shuddered, as some people might when a large spider scuttles across their path. “There’s enough in just this one sculpture to do for the whole tower. Your Capa Raza wanted to be thorough.”

Doña Vorchenza stared out through the glass at the vista north of Camorr; the sky was noticeably darker than it had been even when Locke had been dragged past the bar for his second visit with Doña Vorchenza. “Sofia,” said the Countess Amberglass, “what can you do about these things? Can you prevent their ignition?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Doña Salvara. “I couldn’t see the alchemical fuses; they must be under the Wraithstone. And it’s also possible they might ignite if they’re interfered with. Trying to disable it might be as bad as letting it burn in the first place.”

“We need to get them out of the tower,” said Reynart.

“No,” said Sofia. “Wraithstone smoke rises; it’s lighter than the air around us. I doubt we can get them far enough away by Falselight. If they go off at the bottom of Raven’s Reach, we’ll still be standing in the column of smoke as it rises. The best thing to do would be to drown them; Wraithstone is rendered