Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora

“That deed,” said the Gray King in a weary voice, “will lose its savor in a few minutes, I assure you. Where’s Jean Tannen?”

“On his way,” said Locke. “On his way.”

Locke walked forward slowly, cutting the distance between them in half.

“I warned the Falconer not to toy with Tannen,” said the Gray King. “Apparently, my warning wasn’t heeded. I congratulate you both for your improbable resilience, but now I fear I’ll be doing you a favor by killing you before the Bondsmagi can take their revenge.”

“You’re assuming the Falconer is dead,” said Locke. “He’s still breathing, but he’ll, ah, never play any musical instruments again.”

“Interesting. How have you done all this, I wonder? Why does the Death Goddess scorn to snuff you like a candle? I wish I knew.”

“Fuck your wishes. Why did you do it the way you did, Luciano? Why didn’t you try for an honest accommodation with us? One might have been reached.”

“Might,” said the Gray King. “There was no room for ‘might,’ Lamora. There were only my needs. You had what I needed, and you were too dangerous to let live once I had it. You’ve made that only too clear.”

“But you could have settled for simple theft,” said Locke. “I would have given it all to keep Calo and Galdo and Bug alive. I would have given it all , had you put it to me like that!”

“What thief does not fight to hold what he has?”

“One that has something better,” said Locke. “The stealing was more the point for us than the keeping; if the keeping had been so fine, we would have found something to fucking do with it all.”

“Easy to say, in hindsight.” The Gray King sighed. “You would have said something different, when they were still alive.”

“We stole from the peers , you asshole. We stole from them exclusively . Of all the people to double-cross…You aided the nobility when you tried to wipe us out. You gave the people you hate a gods-damned gift.”

“So you relieved them of their money , Master Lamora, scrupulously refraining from taking lives in the process… Should I applaud? Name you a brother-in-arms? There’s always more money , Lamora. Theft alone would not teach them the lesson they had coming.”

“How could you do it, Luciano? How could a man who lost what you lost, who felt what you felt for Barsavi do the same to me ?”

“The same?” The Gray King leapt up; the rapier was in his hand. “The same ? Were your parents murdered in their beds to protect a lie, Master Lamora? Were your infant siblings put to the knife so they could never grow old enough to revenge? Thief! You don’t know what crime truly is .”

“I lost three brothers at your hands,” said Locke. “I almost lost four. You didn’t need to do it. When you thought you were finished with me, you tried to kill hundreds . Children, Luciano, children -born years after Barsavi murdered your parents. It must be nice to be righteous; from where I’m standing it looks like fucking lunacy.”

“They were sheltered by the Secret Peace,” said the Gray King. “They were parasites, guilty by birth. Save your arguments, Priest. Don’t you think I’ve had them with myself on too many nights to count over the past twenty-two fucking years ?”

The Gray King took a step forward, the tip of his blade rising in Locke’s direction.

“If it were in my power,” he said, “I would knock this city to the ground and write the names of my family in its ashes.”

“Ila justicca vei cala,” Locke whispered. He stepped forward once again, until they were separated by barely two yards. He slid Reynart’s rapier out of its scabbard and stood at guard.

“Justice is red.” The Gray King faced Locke with his knees bent, the true edge of his rapier facing the ground, in the position Camorri fencers called the waiting wolf . “It is indeed.”

Locke struck out before the Gray King had finished speaking; for an eyeblink darting steel cut an afterimage in the air between the two men. The Gray King parried Locke’s thrust, forte to foible, and riposted with speed more than equal to Locke’s own. Lamora avoided a skewering only by an undignified backward lunge; he landed in a crouch with his left hand splayed out to keep himself from going ass-over-elbows on the hard wood of the deck.

Warily, Locke circled in the direction the lunge had knocked him, barely rising from his crouch. A dagger appeared in his left hand as though by legerdemain; this he twirled several times.

“Hmm,” said the Gray King. “Tell me you don’t mean to fight Verrari-style. I find the school insipid.”

“Please yourself.” Locke wiggled his dagger suggestively. “I’ll try not to get too much blood on your cloak.”

Sighing theatrically, the Gray King plucked one of two narrow-hilted daggers from his own belt, and held it out so that his blades opened in the air before him like jaws. He then took two exaggerated hops forward.

Locke flicked his gaze down to the Gray King’s feet for a fraction of a second, realizing almost too late that he was intended to do just that. He whipped himself to his right and barely managed a parry with his dagger; the Gray King’s thrust slid off and cut the air just an inch from his left shoulder. His own riposte met the Gray King’s dagger as though intended for it. Again, Anatolius was too fast by half.

For a few desperate seconds, the two men were fully engaged. Their blades wove silver ghosts in the air-crossing and uncrossing, feint and false feint, thrust and parry. Locke remained just out of reach of the Gray King’s longer, more muscular cuts while the Gray King caught and turned Locke’s every lunge with easy precision. At last they flew apart and stood panting, staring at one another with the resigned, implacable hatred of fighting dogs.

“Hmmm,” said the Gray King, “an illuminating passage.”

He flicked out almost casually with his rapier; Locke darted back once again and parried feebly, tip to tip, like a boy in his first week of training. The Gray King’s eyes glittered.

“ Most illuminating.” Again, a casual flick; again, Locke jumped back.

“You’re not actually very good at this, are you?”

“It would be to my advantage if you thought so, wouldn’t it?”

At this the Gray King actually laughed. “Oh, no. No, no, no .” With one decisive gesture, he flung his cloak and mantle to the ground. A wild grin had etched deep furrows of anticipation into his lean face. “No more bluffs . No more games .”

And then he fell on Locke, his footwork a blur, his brutality unmatched by anything in Locke’s memory. Behind his blade, there were twenty years of experience and twenty years of blackest hatred. Some tiny, detached part of Locke’s mind cooly registered his own inadequacy as he desperately flailed parry after parry, chasing phantom thrusts with his eyes and hands even while the Gray King’s steel was punching through cloth and flesh.

Once, twice, three times-in between breaths, the Gray King’s blade sang out and bit Locke’s left wrist, forearm, and biceps.

Cold surprise hit Locke harder than the pain of the thrusts; then the warm blood began to flow across his sweat-slick skin, tickling devilishly, and a wave of nausea rose up from the pit of his stomach. The dagger dropped from his left hand, red with the wrong man’s blood.

“At last we come to something you cannot pretend your way out of, Master Lamora.” The Gray King flicked Locke’s blood from the tip of his rapier and watched it splash against the wooden deck in an arc. “Goodbye.”