Текст книги "The Republic of Thieves"

Автор книги: Scott Lynch

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

“That’s it, then?”

“That’s it. And remember, I want one emerald necklace. I don’t need two, or the deed to the townhouse, or the bloody crown jewels of Camorr. Tonight’s definitely a night for you to underachieve.”

6

FULL CAMORRI night at last, after a twilight spent nervously fidgeting in an alley, waiting for Sabetha to make contact. Now Locke was with her, up on the roof of the house next door to their target, crouched among the old wooden frames and empty pots of a long-untended garden. It was just past second moonrise, and the wide-open sky was on fire with stars, ten thousand flickering white eyes staring down at Locke, as though eager to see him get to work.

Three feet away, a low dark shape against the stone parapet, lay Sabetha. Her only words to him at their meeting had been “Shut up, keep close, and stay quiet.” He’d done that, following her up the alley wall of the house they now sat upon, using windowsills and deep decorative carvings to haul himself up with little effort. Since then his urge to speak with her had been overruled by his terror of annoying her, and so he fancied that he’d done a fine imitation of a corpse from the moment they’d arrived. When she finally did speak, her soft voice actually startled him.

“I think they’ve gone to sleep at last.”

“Wh-what? Who?”

“The three old women who live here.” Sabetha set her head against the stones of the rooftop and listened for several moments. “They sleep on the second floor, but it never hurts to be careful.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Never worked a roof before. Isn’t that the case, boy?” Sabetha moved slightly, and so quietly that Locke couldn’t hear a single ruffle of her dark tunic and trousers. She peeked over the parapet for no more than the span of a few heartbeats, then crouched back down.

“I, um, no. Not like this.”

“Well, think you can confine yourself to stealing just what we’ve been sent for? Or should I have the yellowjackets rouse out bucket-lines in case you burn the Razona down?”

“I—I’ll do whatever you say. I’ll be careful.”

“Whatever I say?” Her face was in silvery-gray shadow, but her eyes caught the starlight as she turned to him, so he could see them clearly. “You mean it?”

“Oh, yes.” Locke nodded several times. “On my heart. Come hell or Eldren-fire.”

“Good. You might not fuck this up, then.” She gestured toward the parapet. “Move slow. Raise up just high enough to get your eyes over the edge. Take a good look.”

Locke peeked out over the southern parapet of the townhouse; their target house with its thick rooftop garden was to his right, and four stories below him was a clean stretch of cobbled road washed with moonlight. The Razona seemed a gentle, quiet place—no drunks sprawled in gutters, no tavern doors banging constantly open and closed, no yellowjackets moving in squads with truncheons drawn and shields out. Dozens of alchemical globes burned at street level, behind windows and above doors, like bunches of fiery fruit. Only the alleys and rooftops seemed wrapped in anything like real darkness.

“You see Calo and Galdo?” asked Sabetha.

“No.”

“Good. That means they’re where they should be. If something goes wrong—if a squad of yellowjackets shows up in the street, let’s say—those two will start hollering ‘The master wants more wine, the master wants more wine.’ ”

“What then?”

“They run, and we do likewise.” Sabetha crawled over beside him, and Locke felt his breath catch in his throat. Her next words were spoken into his ear. “First rule of roof work is, know how you’re getting down. Do you?”

“Um, same way we came?”

“Too slow. Too risky. Climbing down at speed is more dangerous than going up, especially at night.” She pointed to a thin gray line in the middle of the roof, a line that Locke’s eyes followed to a mess of pots and broken trellises. “I anchored that line when I came up. Demi-silk, should get us down to five feet off the ground. If we need to run, throw it over the edge, slide down as fast as you can, and leave it behind. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Now, look across here.” She nudged his head up above the parapet again, and pointed at an alley across the street. “That’s the escape route. You’ll have to cross the road, but one of the Sanzas should be in cover there watching for you. Chains is another block or two past that. If it all goes to hell, find a Sanza. Understand?”

“Yeah. But what if we don’t get caught?”

“Same plan, boy. We just do it slower. Ready?”

“Sure. Whenever you say. How do we, um, get across?”

“Fire plank.” Sabetha crawled toward the parapet facing their target house, beckoning for him to follow. She gently tapped a long wooden board that rested snug against the stone wall. “In case the place burns up beneath you, you swing it across to the neighbors and hope they like you.”

Working quietly and slowly, the two children lifted the fifteen-foot plank to the edge of the parapet and swiveled it out over the alley, Sabetha guiding it while Locke put his full weight on the inner edge. He felt uneasily like a catapult stone about to fly if the other end should fall, but after a few chancy moments Sabetha had the far end of the plank settled on the parapet of their target house. She hopped gracefully atop it, then got down on her hands and knees.

“One at a time,” she whispered. “Stay low and don’t hurry.”

Across she went, while Locke’s heart raced with the familiar excitement of a crime about to get under way. The farm-field smell of the Hangman’s Wind filled the air, and a warm breeze caught at Locke’s hair. To the northeast loomed the impossibly tall shadows of the Five Towers, with their crowns of silver and gold lanterns, warm artificial constellations mingling with the cold and real stars.

Now came Locke’s turn. The board would have been unnervingly narrow for an adult, but someone Locke’s size could turn around on it without bothering to stand up. He went over with ease, rolled off the edge of the plank, and crouched amid the wet smells of a living garden. Dark boughs of leaves rustled above him, and he almost jumped when Sabetha reached out of the shadows and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“No noise,” she whispered. “I’ll go in after the necklace. You watch the roof. Make sure the plank stays right where we need it.”

“Wh-what if something happens?”

“Pound the floor three times. If something happens that you can see before I do, won’t be anything for us to do but flee anyway. Don’t ever use my name if you call out.”

“I won’t. Good … um, good luck—”

But she was already gone, and a moment later he heard a faint set of clicks. Somewhere in the garden, Sabetha was picking a lock. A moment later she had it, and the hinges of a door creaked ever so faintly.

Locke stood guard at the plank for many long minutes, constantly glancing around, although he admitted to himself that a dozen grown men could have been hiding in the darkness of the vines and leaves around him. Occasionally he popped above the parapet and glanced back across the narrow bridge. The other rooftop remained reassuringly empty.

Locke was just settling back down from his fourth or fifth peek across the way when he heard a commotion beneath his feet. He knelt down and placed one ear against the warm stone; it was a murmur. One person talking, then another. A rising chorus of adult voices. Then the shouting began.

“Oh, shit,” Locke whispered.

There was a series of thumps from the direction Sabetha had gone, then the loud bang of a door being thrown open. She flew out of the shadows at him, grabbed him by the arms, and heaved him onto the plank.

“Go, go, go,” she said, breathlessly. “Fast as you can.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just go, gods damn it! I’ll steady the plank.”

Locke scuttled across the fifteen feet to safety as fast as he’d ever moved in his life, so fast that he tumbled off the parapet on arrival and tucked into an ungainly roll to avoid landing teeth-first. He popped up, head spinning, and whirled back toward Sabetha.

“Come on,” he cried. “Come on!”

“The rope,” she hissed. “Get down the fucking rope!”

“I’ll s-steady the plank for you now.” Locke clamped his hands onto it, gritted his teeth, and braced himself, knowing with some part of his mind just how ridiculous a display of such feeble strength must look. Why was she not coming?

“THE ROPE,” she yelled. “GO!”

Locke looked up just in time to see tall dark shapes burst out of the garden behind her. Adults. Their arms were reaching for her, but she wasn’t trying to escape; she wasn’t even turning toward them. Instead her hands were on the plank, and she was—

“No,” Locke screamed. “NO!”

Sabetha was seized from behind and hoisted into the air, but as she went up she managed to swivel her end of the plank just off the parapet and push it into empty space. Locke felt the terrible sensation of that weight tipping and plummeting into the alley, far too much for him to hold back. His end of the plank leapt up and cracked against his chin, knocking him backward, and as he was landing on his posterior he heard the echoing crash of the plank hitting the ground four stories below.

“GO,” yelled Sabetha one more time. Her shout ended in a muffled cry, and Locke spat blood as he clambered back to his feet.

“The other roof!” A new voice, a man. “Get down to the street!”

Locke wanted to stay, to keep Sabetha in sight, to do something for her, but his feet, ever faster than his wits, were already carrying him away. He snatched at the rope as he stumbled along, threw it over the opposite parapet, and without hesitation he flung himself over the edge. The stones flew past, and the pressure of the rope against his palm rapidly grew into a hot, searing pain. He yowled and let go of the rope just as he reached the bottom, all but flinging himself the last five feet to land gracelessly in a heap.

Nothing seemed broken. His chin ached, his palms felt as though they’d been skinned with a dull axe, and his head was still spinning, but at least nothing seemed broken. He stumbled into a run. As his bare feet slapped against the cobbles of the road the door to the target house burst open, revealing two men outlined in golden light. An instant later they were after him with a shout.

Locke sprinted into the darkness of the alley, willing his legs to rise and fall like water-engine pistons. He knew that he would need every inch of the lead he already had if he hoped to escape. Vague black shapes loomed out of the shadows like something from a nightmare, only transforming into normal objects as he ran past—empty barrels, piles of refuse, broken wagons.

Behind him came the slap-slap-slap of booted feet. Locke sucked in his breath in short, sharp gasps and prayed he wouldn’t run across a broken pot or bottle. Bare feet were better for climbing, but in a dead run someone with shoes had every advantage. The men were getting closer—

Something slammed into Locke so forcefully that his first thought was that he’d struck a wall. His breath exploded out of him, and his next impression was a confused sense of movement. Someone grabbed him by his tunic and threw him down; someone else leapt out of the darkness and sprinted in the direction he’d been headed. Someone about his size or a little bigger .…

“Shhhh,” whispered one of the Sanzas, directly into his ear. “Play dead.”

Locke was lying with his cheek against wet stone, staring at a narrow opening into a brick-walled passage. He realized he’d been yanked into a smaller alley branching off the one he’d tried to escape down. The Sanza restraining him pulled something heavy, damp, and fetid down around them, leaving only the thinnest space exposed for them to see out of. A split second later Locke’s two pursuers pounded past, huffing and swearing. They continued after the shape that had taken Locke’s place and didn’t spare a glance for the two boys huddled under cover a few feet away.

“Calo will give ’em a good chase, then get back to us once they’re slipped,” said the Sanza after a few seconds.

“Galdo,” said Locke. “They got her. They got Beth.”

“We know.” Galdo pushed aside their camouflage. It looked like an ancient leather coat, gnawed by animals and covered in every possible foulness an alley could cultivate. “When we heard the shouting we ran for it and got in position to grab you. Quick and quiet now.”

Galdo hoisted Locke to his feet, turned, and padded down the branch alley.

“They got her,” repeated Locke, suddenly aware that his cheeks were hot with tears. “They got her, we have to do something, we have to—”

“I bloody well know.” Galdo seized him by the hand and pulled him along. “Chains will tell us what to do. Come on.”

As Sabetha had promised, Chains wasn’t far. Galdo pulled Locke west, toward the docks, to the rows of cheaper warehouses beside the canal that marked the farthest boundary of the Razona. Chains was waiting there, in plain clothes and a long brown coat, inside an empty warehouse that smelled of rot and camphor. When the two boys stumbled in the door, Chains shook a weak light from an alchemical globe and hurried over to them.

“It went wrong,” said Galdo.

“They got her,” said Locke, not caring that he was bawling. “They got her, I’m sorry, they just, they just got her.” Locke threw himself at Father Chains, and the man, without hesitation, scooped him up and held him, patting his back until his racking sobs quieted down.

“There, boy, there,” said Chains. “You’re with us now. All’s well. Who got her? Can you tell me?”

“I don’t know … men in the house.”

“Not yellowjackets?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so. I’m sorry, I couldn’t … I tried to think of something, but—”

“There was nothing you could have done,” said Chains firmly. He set Locke down and used a coat sleeve to dry his cheeks. “You managed to get away, and that was enough.”

“We didn’t g-get … the necklace—”

“Fuck the necklace.” Chains turned to the Sanza who’d brought Locke in. “Where’s Galdo?”

“I’m Galdo.”

“Where’s—”

“Calo’s ditching a couple of men that chased us.”

“What kind of men? Uniforms? Weapons?”

“I don’t think they were mustard. They might’ve been with the old guy you wanted us to rob.”

“Hell’s flaming shits.” Chains grabbed up his walking stick (an affectation for his disguise, but a fine way to have a weapon close at hand), then produced a dagger in a leather sheath that he tossed to Galdo. “Stay here. Douse the light and hide yourselves. Try not to stab Calo if he returns before I do.”

“Where are you going?” asked Locke.

“To find out who we’re dealing with.”

Chains went out the door with a speed that put the lie to his frequent claims of advancing infirmity. Galdo picked up the tiny alchemical light and tossed it to Locke, who concealed it within his closed hands. Alone in the darkness, the two boys settled down to wait for whatever came next.

7

CHAINS RETURNED a brief fraction of an hour later, with an ashen-faced Calo in tow. Locke uncovered the light as they entered the warehouse and ran toward them.

“Where is she?” he asked.

Chains stared at the three boys and sighed. “I need the smallest,” he said quietly.

“Me?”

“Of course you, Locke.” Chains reached out and grabbed both Sanza brothers. He knelt beside them and whispered instructions that were too brief and quiet for Locke to catch. Calo and Galdo seemed to recoil.

“Gods damn it, boys,” said Chains. “You know we’ve got no choice. Get back home. Stay together.”

They ran out of the warehouse without another word. Chains rose and turned to Locke.

“Come,” he said. “Time is no friend of ours this evening.”

“Where are we going?” Locke scampered to keep up.

“Not far. A house a block north of where you were.”

“Is it … should we really be going back that way?”

“Perfectly safe now that you’re with me.” True to his word, Chains had turned east, on a street rather than an alley, and was walking briskly toward the neighborhood Locke had just fled.

“Who’s got her? The yellowjackets?”

“No. They’d have taken her to a watch station, not a private residence.”

“The, um, men we tried to rob?”

“No. Worse than that.” Locke couldn’t see Chains’ face, but he imagined that he could hear his scowl in every word he spoke. “Agents of the duke. His secret police. Commanded by the man with no name.”

“No name?”

“They call him the Spider. His people get work that’s too delicate for the yellowjackets. They’re spies, assassins, false-facers. Dangerous folk, as dangerous as any of the Right People.”

“Why were they at the house?”

“Bad luck is much too comforting a possibility. I believe my information about the necklace was a poisoned tip.”

“But then … holy shit, but that means we have an informer!”

“It is a vile sin for that wordto come lightly off the lips of our kind.” Chains whirled, and Locke stumbled backward in surprise. Chains’ face was grimmer than Locke had ever seen it, and he waved a finger to emphasize his words. “It’s the worst thing one Right Person can say or think of another. Before you accuse, you’d damn well better know. Drop that word carelessly and you’d best be armed, understand?

“Y-yes. Sorry.”

“My man at Meraggio’s is solid.” Chains turned, and with Locke at his heels hurried down the street again. “My childrenare beyond reproach, all of you.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I know. That means the information itself was bait for a trap. They probably didn’t even know who’d bite. They set a line and waited for a fish.”

“Why would they care?”

“It’s in their interest,” grumbled Chains. “Thieves with contacts at Meraggio’s, thieves willing to work in a nice quiet place like the Razona … that sort of person merits scrutiny. Or stepping on.”

Locke held onto Chains’ sleeve as they threaded their way back into the quality neighborhoods, where the peace and calm seemed utterly surreal to Locke, given the disturbance he and Sabetha had raised so recently. At last Chains guided Locke into the low, well-kept gardens behind a row of three-story homes. He pointed to the next house over, and the two of them crouched behind a crumbling stone wall to observe the scene.

Half-visible past the edge of the house was a carriage without livery, guarded by at least two men. The lights in the house were on, but all the windows, save one, were covered by curtains behind thick mosaic glass. The lone exception was on the rear wall, where an orange glow was coming from under a second-story window that had been cracked open.

“Is she in there?” whispered Locke.

“She is. That open window.”

“How do we get her out?”

“We don’t.”

“But … we’re here … you brought me here—”

“Locke.” Chains set a hand on Locke’s right shoulder. “She’s tied down in that room up there. They have four men inside and two out front with the carriage. Duke’s men, above every law. You and I can’t fight them.”

“Then why did you bring me here?”

Chains reached inside his tunic, snapped the cord that held a small object around his neck, and held the object out to Locke. It was a glass vial, about the size of Locke’s smallest finger.

“Take this,” Chains said. “You’re small enough to climb the vines on that back wall, reach the window, and then—”

“ No.” The realization of what that vial meant made Locke want to throw up. “No, no, no!”

“Listen, boy, listen! Time is wasting. We can’t get her out. They’ll start asking her questions soon. You know how they do that? Hot irons. Knives. When they’re finished they’ll know everything about you, me, Calo, Galdo. What we do and where we work. We’ll never be safe in Camorr again, and our own kind will be as hot for our blood as the duke’s people.”

“No, she’s clever, she’ll—”

“We’re not made of iron, boy.” Chains grabbed Locke’s right hand, squeezed it firmly, and placed the warm glass vial against his palm. “We’re flesh and blood, and if they hurt us long enough we’ll say anything they want us to say.”

Chains gently bent Locke’s fingers in over the vial, then lifted his own hands away slowly.

“She’ll know what to do,” he said.

“I can’t,” said Locke, fresh tears starting down his cheeks. “I can’t. Please.”

“Then they’ll torture her,” said Chains quietly. “You know she’ll fight them as long as she can. So they’ll do it for hours. Maybe days. They’ll break her bones. They’ll peel her skin. And you’re the only onewho can get up to that window. You … trip over your tongue around her. You like her, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Locke, staring into the darkness, trying desperately to think of anything bolder, cleverer, braver than climbing to that window and handing a beautiful girl a vial with which she would kill herself.

He had nothing.

“Not fair,” he sobbed. “Not fair, not fair.”

“We can’t get her out, Locke.” The gentleness and sorrow in Chains’ voice caught Locke’s attention in a way that scolding or commanding could not have. “What happens now is up to you. If you can’t get to her, she’ll live. For a while. And she’ll be in hell. But if you can get to that window … if you can just pass the vial to her …”

Locke nodded, and hated himself for nodding.

“Brave lad,” whispered Chains. “Don’t wait. Go. Fast and quiet as a breeze.”

It was no great feat to steal across thirty feet of dark garden, to find hand and footholds in the lush vines at the rear of the house, to scuttle upward. But the moments it took felt like hours, and by the time Locke was poised beside the second-story window he was shaking so badly that he was sure anyone in the house could hear it.

By the grace of the Crooked Warden there were no shouts of alarm, no windows slamming open, no armed men charging into the garden. Ever so carefully, he set his eyes level with the two-inch gap at the bottom of the open window, and moved his head to the right just far enough to peek into the room.

Locke swallowed a sob when he saw Sabetha, seated in a heavy, high-backed chair, facing away from him. Beside her, the some sort of cabinet—No. It was a man in a long black coat, a huge man. Locke ducked back out of sight. Gods, Chains was right about at least one thing. They couldn’t fight a brute like that, with or without a house full of other men to aid him.

“I’m not an enemy, you know.” The man had a deep, precise voice with the barest hint of a strange accent. “We want so little from you. You must realize that your friends can’t save you. Not from us.”

There was a long silence. The man sighed.

“You might think that we couldn’t do the things I suggested earlier. Not to a pretty little girl. But you’re as good as hung now. Makes it easy on the conscience. Sooner or later, you’ll talk. Even if you have to talk through your screams.

“I’ll, ah, leave you alone for a bit. Let you think. But think hard, girl. We’re only patient as long as we have orders to be.”

There was a slamming sound, a heavy door being shut, and then a slight metallic clank; the man had turned a key behind him.

Now it was time. Time to slip into the room, pass the vial over, and escape as quickly as possible. And then Sabetha would kill herself, and Locke would … would …

“Fuck this,” he whispered to himself.

Locke pushed at the window, widening the opening at its bottom. Windows that slid up and down were a relatively new and expensive development in Camorr, so rare that even Locke knew they were special. Whatever mechanism raised and lowered this one was well-oiled, and it rose with little resistance. Sabetha turned her head toward the noise as Locke slid over the windowsill and flopped inside. Her eyes were wide with surprise.

“Hi,” whispered Locke, less dramatically than he might have hoped. He stood up from the inch-deep carpet and examined Sabetha’s chair. His heart sank. It was glossy hardwood, taller than the window, and likely weighed more than he did. Furthermore, while Sabetha’s arms were free, she was shackled at the ankles.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Getting you out,” Locke whispered. He glanced around the room, pondering anxiously. They were in a library, but the shelves and scroll-cases were bare. Not a single book in sight. No sharp objects, no levers, no tools. He examined the door, hoping for some sort of interior lock or bar he could throw, and was disappointed there as well.

“I can’t get out of this chair,” said Sabetha, her voice low and urgent. “They could be back any moment. What’s that you’re holding?”

Locke suddenly remembered the vial he was clutching tightly in his right hand. Before he could think of anything else to do he moved it behind his back like a fool.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

“I know why Chains sent you up here.” Sabetha closed her eyes as she spoke. “It’s okay. He and I talked about it before. It’s—”

“No. I’ll think of something. Help me.”

“It’s going to be all right. Give it to me.”

“I can’t.” Locke held up his hands, pleading. “Help me get you out of that chair.”

“Locke,” said Sabetha, and the sound of her speaking his name at last was like a hammer-blow to his heart. “You swore to do what I said. Come hell or Eldren-fire. Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “But you’ll die.”

“There’s no other way.” She held out one of her hands.

“No.” He rubbed at his eyes, feeling tears starting again.

“Then what are you loyal to, Locke?”

A coldness gnawed at the pit of Locke’s stomach. Every failure he’d experienced in his few short years, every time he’d been caught or foiled, every time he’d ever made a mistake, been punished, gone hungry—all those moments churned up and relived at once couldn’t have equaled the bitter weight of the defeat that settled in his gut now.

He placed the glass vial in her hand, and for a moment their fingers met, warmth against warmth. She gave his hand a little squeeze, and Locke gasped, letting the vial out of his grip. Her fingers curled around it, and now there was no taking it back.

“Go,” she whispered.

He stared at her, unable to believe he’d actually done it, and then finally turned away. It was just three steps to the window, but his feet felt distant and numb. He braced one hand on the windowsill, more to steady himself than to escape.

A loud click echoed in the room, and the door began to swing open.

Locke heaved himself over the sill, scrambled to plant his feet in the vines that clung to the house’s brick exterior, and prayed to drop down fast enough to escape notice, or at least get a head start—

“Locke, wait!” came a deep and familiar voice.

Locke clung precariously to the windowsill and strained to lift his head enough to glance back into the room. The door was wide open, and standing there was Father Chains.

“No,” whispered Locke, suddenly realizing what the whole point of the night’s exercise really was. But that meant– That meant Sabetha wouldn’t have to—

He was so startled he lost his grip, and with a sharp cry he fell backward into the air above the darkened garden.

8

“TOLD YOU he wasn’t dead.” It was one of the Sanzas, his voice coming out of the darkness. “Like a physiker, I am. Ought to charge you a fee for my opinion.”

“Sure.” The other Sanza now, speaking close to Locke’s right ear. “Hope you like getting paid in kicks to the head.”

Locke opened his eyes and found himself on a table in a well-lit room, a room that had the same strange lack of opulence as the library Sabetha had been chained up in. There was the table and a few chairs, but no tapestries, no decorations, no sense that anyone actually lived here. Locke winced, took a deep breath, and sat bolt upright. His back and his head ached dully.

“Easy, boy.” Chains was at his side in an instant. “You took quite a tumble. If only you weren’t so damnably quick on your feet, I might have convinced—”

Chains reached out to gently push him back down, and Locke swatted his hands away.

“You lied,” he growled.

“Forgive me,” said Chains, very softly. “There was still one thing we needed to know about you, Locke.”

“You lied!” The depth of Locke’s rage came as a shock; he couldn’t remember feeling anything like it even for tormentors like Gregor and Veslin—and he’d killed them, hadn’t he? “None of it was real!”

“Be reasonable,” said Chains. “It’s a bit risky to stage a kidnapping using actual agents of the duke.”

“No,” said Locke. “It was wrong. It was wrong! It wasn’t like they really would have done! I might have gotten her out!”

“You can’t fight grown men,” said Chains. “You did the very best you could in a bad situation.”

“IT WAS WRONG!” Locke forced himself to concentrate, to articulate what his gut was telling him. “They would … real guards might have done differently. Not chained her down. This was all made for me. All made so I had no choice!”

“Yes,” said Chains. “It was a game you couldn’t win. A situation that finds us all, sooner or later.”

“No,” said Locke, feeling his anger warm him from his head to his toes. “It was all wrong!”

“He did it to us too, once,” said Calo, grabbing his right arm. “Gods, we wanted to die, it was so bad.”

“He did it to allof us,” said Sabetha, and Locke whirled at the sound of her voice. She was standing in a corner, arms folded, studying him with a combination of interest and unease. “He’s right. We had to know if you could do it.”

“And you did superbly,” said Chains. “You did better than we could have—”

“It wasn’t fair,” shouted Locke. “It wasn’t a fair test! There was no way to win!”

“That’s life,” said Chains. “That’s your one sure inheritance as flesh and blood. Nobody wins all the time, Locke.”

Locke shook himself free from Calo’s grasp and stood on the table, so that he actually had to look down to meet Chains eye to eye.

Gods, he’d thought Sabetha was gone once, and he’d rejoiced to find her alive. Then he’d been sent to killher. That was the rage, he realized, burning like a coal behind his heart. For a few terrible minutes Chains had made him believe that he would have to lose her all over again. Narrowed his world to one awful choice and made him feel helpless.

“I will never lose again.” He nodded slowly to himself, as though his words were the long-sought solution to some mathematical puzzle. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, not caring if he was heard across the length and breadth of the Razona.

“Do you hear me? I WILL NEVER LOSE AGAIN!”