"As a reminder." Stragos released his hold on the tree-trunk and let the boat drift gently into the middle of the stream once again. "Of what the hands and minds of human beings can achieve. Of what this city, alone in all the world, is capable of producing. I told you my Mon Magisteria is a repository of artificial things. Think of them as the fruits of order… order I must secure and safeguard."
"How the hell does interfering with Tal Verrar's ocean commerce secure and safeguard order?"
"Short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. There is something latent in this city that will flower, Lamora. Something that will bloom. Can you imagine the wonders the Therin Throne might have produced given centuries of peace, had it not been shattered into all our warring, scrabbling city-states? Something is preparing to emerge out of all our misfortune at last, and it will be here. The alchemists and artificers of Tal Verrar are peerless, and the scholars of the Therin Collegium are just a few days away … it must be here!"
"Maxilan, darling." Locke raised one eyebrow and smiled. "I knew you were driven, but I had no idea you could smoulder. Come, take me now! Jean won't mind; he'll avert his eyes like a gentleman."
"Mock me as you will, Lamora, but hear the words I speak. Hear and comprehend, damn you. What you just witnessed," said Stragos, "required sixty men and women to achieve. Spotters watching for my signals. Alchemists to tend the smoke-pots and hidden crews to work the bellows and fans that produce the wind. There were several dozen merely pulling strings, as it were — the branches of my artificial trees are threaded with metal wire, like puppets, so that they may be shaken more convincingly. A small army of trained workers, straining to produce a five-minute spectacle for three men in a boat. And even that was not possible with the art and artifice of previous centuries.
"What more might we achieve, given time? What if thirty people could produce the same result? Or ten? Or one? What if better devices could give stronger winds, more driving rain, a harder current? What if our mechanisms of control grew so subtle and so powerful that they ceased to be a spectacle at all? What if we could harness them to change anything, control anything, even ourselves? Our bodies? Our souls} We cower in the ruins of the Eldren world, and in the shadow of the Magi of Karthain. But common men and women could equal their power. Given centuries, given the good grace of the gods, common men and women could eclipse their power."
"And all of these grandiose notions," said Jean, "somehow require the two of us to go out and pretend to be pirates on your behalf?"
"Tal Verrar will never be strong so long as its fate is vouchsafed by those who would squeeze gold from it like milk from a cow's udders, then flee for the horizon at the first sign of danger. I need more power, and to speak plainly, I must seize or trick it out of my enemies, with the will of the people behind me. Your mission, if successful, would turn a key in the lock of a door that bars the way to greater things." Stragos chuckled and spread his hands. "You are thieves. I am offering you a chance to help steal history itself."
"Which is of little comfort," said Locke, "compared to money in a counting house and a roof over one's head." "You hate the Magi of Karthain," said Stragos flatly. "I suppose I do," said Locke.
"The last Emperor of the Therin Throne tried to fight them with magic; sorcery against sorcery. He died for his failure. Karthain can never be conquered by the arts it commands; they have ensured that no power in our world will ever have sorcerers numerous or powerful enough to match them. They must be fought with this." He set down his oar and spread his hands. "Machines. Artifice. Alchemy and engineering; the fruits of the mind."
"All of this," said Locke, "this whole ridiculous scheme… a more powerful Tal Verrar, conquering this corner of the world… all to hurt Karthain? I can't say I find the idea unpleasant, but why? What did they do to you, to make you imagine this?"
"Do either of you know," said Stragos, "of the ancient art of illu-sionism? Have you ever read about it in books of history?" "A little," said Locke. "Not very much."
"Once upon a time the performance of illusions — imaginary magic, not real sorcery at all, just clever tricks — was widespread, popular and lucrative. Commoners paid to see it on street corners; nobles of the Therin Throne paid to see it in their courts. But that culture is dead. The art no longer exists, except as trifles for card-sharps. The Bondsmagi haunt our city-states like wolves, ready to crush the slightest hint of competition. No sensible person would ever stand up in public and declare themselves to be capable of magic. Fear killed the entire tradition, hundreds of years ago.
"The Bondsmagi distort our world with their very presence. They rule us in many ways that have nothing to do with politics; the fact that we can hire them to do our bidding is immaterial. That little guild looms over everything we plan, everything we dream. Fear of the Magi poisons our people to the very marrow of their ambitions. It prevents them from imagining a larger destiny… from the hope of reforging the empire we once had. I know that you consider what I" ve done to you unforgivable. But believe it or not, I admire you for standing up to the Bondsmagi. They turned you over to me as a means of punishment. Instead, I ask you to help me strike at them."
"Grand abstracts," said Jean. "You make it sound like this is some sort of incredible privilege for us, being pressed into service without our consent."
"I don't need an excuse to hate the Bondsmagi," said Locke. "Not to hate them, nor to fight them. I" ve taunted them to their faces, more or less. Jean and I both. But you have to be some kind of madman to think they'll ever let you build anything openly powerful enough to knock them down."
"I don't expect to live to see it," said Stragos. "I only expect to plant the seed. Look at the world around you, Lamora. Examine the clues they" ve given us. Alchemy is revered in every corner of our world, is it not? It lights our rooms, salves our injuries, preserves our food… enhances our cider." He favoured Locke and Jean with a self-satisfied smile. "Alchemy is a low-grade form of magic, but the Bondsmagi have never once tried to curtail or control it." "Because they just don't give a damn," said Locke.
"Wrong," said Stragos. "Because it's so necessary to so many things. It would be like trying to deny us the right to water, or fire. It would push us too far. No matter the cost, no matter the carnage, it would force us to fight back against them for the sake of our very existence. And they know it. Their power has limits. Someday we'll surpass those limits, if only we're given a chance."
"That's a fine bedtime story," said Locke. "If you wrote a book on that subject, I'd pay for ten copies to be scribed. But here and now you're interfering with our lives. You're tearing us away from something we've worked long and hard to achieve."
"I am prepared to expand on my earlier terms," said Stragos, "and offer a financial reward for the successful completion of your task." "How much?" said Locke and Jean simultaneously.
"No promises," said Stragos. "Your reward will be proportional to your achievement. I shall make you as happy as you make me. Is that understood?"
Locke stared at Stragos for several seconds, scratching his neck. Stragos was using a confidence trick: an appeal to high ideals followed by an appeal to greed. And this was a classic fuck-the-agent situation: Stragos had no compulsion whatsoever to follow through on his promise, and nothing to lose by making it, and no reason at all to let him and Jean live once their task was finished. He made eye contact with Jean and stroked his chin several times, a simple hand-signaclass="underline" Lying.
Jean sighed and tapped his fingers a few times against the gunwale on his side of the boat. He seemed to share Locke's thought that elaborate signals would best be avoided with Stragos just a few feet away. His answer was equally simple: Agreed.