“But we don’t want to dig in the earth,” chuckled the most talkative of the three. “We want to get fobbed. We want the sweet ache sucked out of us, you ken?
“Miners. It’s cant. They’re called miners because they use their tools to find metal, get it? Say you’re after copper miners if your purses are light, silver miners if you can afford it.”
“Well, what about you, boy? If we didn’t want to stroll for our pleasure, how’d you like to do a bit of mining somewhere quiet nearby?”
Locke wasn’t offended or frightened, but he was exasperated. Nobody thought they were bigger than little merchants who did a bit of traveling. Nobody was more certain that all the features and curiosities of the world were set out for their convenience.
“Not my line,” he said, “and you can’t ask that here. There’s ways of doing things and places to do them, lots of places. But this business is closely minded.” He wasn’t going to spend all night explaining the Guilded Lilies or the Passing Fancies to these strangers, or that those gangs didn’t take kindly to freelance fuck-mongering.
“You’re telling us you don’t know a good place to hide around here?”
“The boy’s telling you he’s not interested.” Mazoc Szaba set one hand on the bar. “Get gone, you slack-witted palliards. He told you how to find your fun. Go find it somewhere better-lit and stay in those districts.”
The talkative merchant looked as though he might snap back, but Locke saw the fight go out of him as he assessed Szaba. There was something grim and assured about the old mercenary tonight. His eyes were fierce, there was a fresh cut across one of his cheeks, and the straight lines of a scabbard were obvious beneath his jacket. Perhaps that was why nobody had mocked or otherwise remarked upon him as he’d slipped into the Unbroken Jar.
Hands up, eyes wide, the three merchants backed out the door and into the night.
Locke stared at Szaba, wishing he could conjure such an aura of menace about himself but knowing if he tried he’d look like a clown. A small clown who’d lost control of his face. He settled for not smiling, and some of the iron seemed to go out of Szaba’s spine.
“I have earned that lack of enthusiasm, I suppose,” Szaba muttered. “I did some work.” He ran a finger over the inflamed red edges of his new cut. “None of the Barsavis are looking for me now.”
“Selling a sword?”
“Let us say, renting a knife.” Szaba slid his hand across the bar, and there were coins under his fingers. Four silvers. When Locke didn’t take them, he rolled his eyes. “Go on. They don’t have any blood on them. Even the figurative kind. I was bodyguarding, not body-making. Fuck. I shouldn’t have run those idiots off. Should’ve hired on as their guide.”
Locke nodded and made the coins vanish into his hands. “And the rest?”
“In prospect.” Szaba lowered his voice. “I appreciate you staking me, boy. I won’t let you down.”
Yet he would, not long after sea creatures fell from the sky over half the city.
10.
That summer was storm-lashed. As the weather built up, priests of Iono in their best silver-fringed robes made offerings from air and land to abate the fury of the waters. Blood ran from altars on the South Needle and the West Needle; bulls and goats and rabbits and chickens and pigeons and hawks spilled crimson lines down to the surging sea, and the priests danced in processions with their prayer-flags, blowing horns fashioned like sharks and swordfish and horned whales. They carried out these duties under gray-green skies, and then in spit-warm drizzle, and then bent under sheets of sweeping rain. So it went. Iono was called Stormbringer, not ‘storm-sparer’ or ‘merry pretender.’
Locke was with the work party sent up one afternoon in the pelting rain to fortify the lashings on the wine-mast, lest it fly away and impale someone (bad enough) or be rendered useless forever (far worse in Botari’s eyes). It was Cyril who broke from work with an ever-louder series of “fucking hells!” that eventually gave permission for Locke, Vilius, and Eight to slack off in awe along with him. To their north, the Five Towers were enfolded in bruised clouds and eerie lightning was rippling along the lines between the towers, making the glass pulse with brief flashes of the incandescence usually seen only at Falselight. To their south, wavering gray columns erupted from swirling mist and bridged the sea and sky.
“Waterspouts,” cried Eight. “Never seen any this close to the city before! I’m too sober for this degree of fuckery!”
“Well,” shouted Vilius, “we—"
Whatever he was going to say next turned into a pathetic muffled cry as something bounced off his head, rolling him backward over the wine-mast in a flail of arms and legs. Locke stared at the gray object on the rain-rippled roof for several seconds before his mind accepted that it was a fish. Even through the sound of the rain and the wind Locke could hear other things falling nearby. Someone in the street cried out in dismay after a particularly disquieting squelching crash.
“Treasure straight from Iono’s ass,” laughed Eight as she pulled Cyril up with one hand and plucked the fish that had laid him low in her other. “You lucky bastard! This is a Shank-flank. They have rows of spines under their fins, make your face swell up for days if they jab you!”
Cyril seemed to think the fish had delivered a wound that was heroic even without venom, and he led the flight back down through the rooftop hatch as the waterspouts continued assailing Camorr with flying wreckage and fish and gobs of seaweed, like an audience expressing its feelings about an inadequate play.
Canals flooded, boats foundered. Some parts of Camorr, well-served by Eldren catacombs or human engineering, drained swiftly. The Dregs was not one of those places. Ankle-deep water filled the Unbroken Jar for days on end, and to Locke’s infinite list of other chores was added the ongoing task of juggling jars, bottles, and boxes onto counters and shelves to keep them out of the general drench. He gave up wearing shoes for the duration, and tried not to think of what he was soaking his clammy, puckered feet in. The crowds were not dismayed; even soggy, they still wanted to drink bad wine and risk money on half-crazed bets. The Measure handed down odds for card tricks, arm wrestling, and even a blindfolded boxing match that splashed around for a quarter of an hour and injured three spectators. Two of them thought this was hilarious, and the one that didn’t was found bobbing gently in the back alley the next morning, throat slit and pockets empty.
“Here, I fetched you a new friend for dinner,” said Mazoc Szaba one evening as lightning flashed white through the open door. He handed a red and black squid to Locke, who passed it to Eight, who had set up a special cauldron. Anyone who presented something edible from the ongoing bombardment of sea creatures could claim a portion of Eight’s perpetually simmering storm stew. “Not all of these flavors are meant to bed down together,” she had confided to Locke, “but if you add enough garlic, butter, and booze you can pass off a rat’s peeled asshole as a dainty morsel.”
“Damn thing nearly took my head off not five minutes ago,” said Szaba as he braced himself to dash back a clipped copper’s worth of varnishy wine. “I might’ve been a martyr to Iono’s sense of humor. Must be my lucky night.” Down went the wine, and he grinned his unhealthy, wolfish grin. “In fact, I’m sure it is.”
“Oh don’t,” muttered Locke. “Please fucking don’t—”
“Measure!” Szaba rose, pounded the countertop, and splashed into the center of the room. “Measure! I have the money and there’s nobody after me tonight! I require, request, and demand an opportunity for redemption!”