Scott Lynch - The Lies of Locke Lamora

“And,” he continued, “now that the Catchfire quarantine’s lifted, every slaver and would-be slaver in Camorr is going to be very excited and very alert . You’re free to get up and leave this hill any time you see fit-with my confident assurance that you’ll soon be sucking cocks or chained to an oar for the rest of your life.

“Which leads me to my second point. All of my friends you see around you”-he gestured to the Shades’Hill orphans lined up against the walls-“can leave whenever they please, and mostly go wherever they please, because they are under my protection. I know,” he said with a long and solemn face, “that I am nothing especially formidable when considered as an individual, but do not be misled. I have powerful friends, my dears. What I offer is security by virtue of those friends. Should anyone-a slaver, for example-dare to set a hand on one of my Shades’ Hill boys or girls, well…the consequences would be immediate, and gratifyingly, ahhh, merciless .”

When none of his newcomers seemed appropriately enthusiastic, the Thiefmaker cleared his throat. “I’d have the miserable fucking bastards killed. Savvy?”

They were indeed.

“Which brings us neatly to my third item of interest-namely, all of you. This little family always needs new brothers and sisters, and you may consider yourselves invited- encouraged , no less-to, ahhh, condescend to offer us the pleasure of your intimate and permanent acquaintance. Make this hill your home, myself your master, and these fine boys and girls your trusted siblings. You’ll be fed, sheltered, and protected. Or you can leave right now and end up as fresh fruit in some whorehouse in Jerem. Any takers?”

None of the newcomers said anything.

“I knew I could count on you, my dear, dear Catchfire jewels.” The Thiefmaker spread his arms wide and smiled, revealing a half-moon of teeth brown as swampwater. “But of course, there must be responsibilities. There must be give and take, like for like. Food doesn’t sprout from my asshole. Chamber pots don’t empty themselves. Catch my meaning?”

There were hesitant nods from about half the Catchfire orphans.

“The rules are simple! You’ll learn them all in good time. For now, let’s keep it like this. Anybody who eats, works. Anyone who works, eats. Which brings us to my fourth…Oh, dear. Children, children. Do an absentminded old man the favor of imagining that he held up four fingers. This is my fourth important point.

“Now, we’ve got our chores here on the hill, but we’ve got chores elsewhere that also need doing. Other jobs…delicate jobs, unusual jobs. Fun and interesting jobs. All about the city, some by day and some by night. They will require courage, deftness, and, ahhh, discretion. We would so love to have your assistance with these…special tasks.”

He pointed to the one boy he hadn’t paid for, the small hanger-on, now staring up at him with hard, sullen eyes above a mouth still plastered with tomato innards.

“You, surplus boy, thirty-first of thirty. What say you? Are you the helpful sort? Are you willing to assist your new brothers and sisters with their interesting work?”

The boy mulled this over for a few seconds.

“You mean,” he said in a high thin voice, “that you want us to steal things.”

The old man stared down at the little boy for a very long time while a number of the Shades’ Hill orphans giggled behind their hands.

“Yes,” the Thiefmaker said at last, nodding slowly. “I might just mean that-though you have a very, ahhh, uncompromising view of a certain exercise of personal initiative that we prefer to frame in more artfully indeterminate terms. Not that I expect that to mean anything to you. What’s your name, boy?”

“Lamora.”

“Your parents must have been misers, to give you nothing but a surname. What else did they call you?”

The boy seemed to think very deeply about this.

“I’m called Locke,” he finally said. “After my father.”

“Very good. Rolls right off the tongue, it does. Well, Locke-after-your-father Lamora, you come here and have a word with me. The rest of you, shuffle off. Your brothers and sisters will show you where you’ll be sleeping tonight. They’ll also show you where to empty this and where to put that-chores, if you savvy. Just to tidy this hall up for now, but there’ll be more jobs for you in the days to come. I promise it will all make sense by the time you find out what they call me in the world beyond our little hill.”

Locke moved to stand beside the Thiefmaker on his high-backed throne; the throng of newcomers rose and milled about until larger, older Shades’ Hill orphans began collaring them and issuing simple instructions. Soon enough, Locke and the master of Shades’ Hill were as alone as they could hope to be.

“My boy,” the Thiefmaker said, “I’m used to having to train a certain reticence out of my new sons and daughters when they first arrive in Shades’ Hill. Do you know what reticence is?”

The Lamora boy shook his head. His greasy dust-brown bangs were plastered down atop his round little face, and the tomato stains around his mouth had grown drier and more unseemly. The Thiefmaker dabbed delicately at these stains with one cuff of his tattered blue coat; the boy didn’t flinch.

“It means they’ve been told that stealing things is bad, and I need to work around that until they get used to the idea, savvy? Well, you don’t seem to suffer from any such reticence, so you and I might just get along. Stolen before, have you?”

The boy nodded.

“Before the plague, even?”

Another nod.

“Thought so. My dear, dear boy…you didn’t, ahhh, lose your parents to the plague , now, did you?”

The boy looked down at his feet and barely shook his head.

“So you’ve already been, ahhh, looking after yourself for some time. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, now. It might even secure you a place of some respect here, if only I can find a means to put you to the test…”

By way of response, the Lamora boy reached under his rags and held something out to the Thiefmaker. Two small leather purses fell into the old man’s open palm-cheap things, stiff and stained, with frayed cords around their necks.

“Where did you get these, then?”

“The watchmen,” Locke whispered. “Some of the watchmen picked us up and carried us.”

The Thiefmaker jerked back as though an asp had just sunk its fangs into his spine, and stared down at the purses with disbelief. “You lifted these from the fucking city watch? From the yellowjackets ?”

Locke nodded, more enthusiastically. “They picked us up and carried us.”

“Gods,” the Thiefmaker whispered. “Oh, gods. You may have just fucked us all superbly, Locke-after-your-father Lamora. Quite superbly indeed.”

“HE BROKE the Secret Peace the first night I had him, the cheeky little bastard.” The Thiefmaker was now seated more comfortably in the rooftop garden of the Eyeless Priest’s temple, with a tarred leather cup of wine in his hands. It was the sourest sort of secondhand near vinegar, but it was another sign that genuine negotiations might yet break out. “Never happened before, nor since.”

“Someone taught him to charm a coat, but didn’t tell him that the yellowjackets were strictly off-limits.” Father Chains pursed his lips. “Very curious, that. Very curious indeed. Our dear Capa Barsavi would so love to meet such an individual.”

“I never found out who it was. The boy claimed he’d just taught himself, but that’s crap. Five-year-olds play with dead fish and horse turds, Chains. They don’t invent the finer points of soft-touching and purse-cutting on a whim.”