Scott Lynch - Red Seas Under Red Skies

In the centre of the second floor was a brass cage that could be lowered from the ceiling, locking into apertures in the floor to create a sturdy cube about twenty feet on a side. Tonight the cage was also covered with a very fine mesh — no, Locke corrected himself, two layers of mesh, one inside the cage and one outside. A lucky minority of the Sinspire patrons in the room were watching from elevated tables along the outer walls; it was standing-room only for at least a hundred others.

Locke and Jean made their way through the crowd anticlockwise, attempting to get close enough to see what the spectacle was. The excited murmur of conversation surrounded them, more frantic than Locke had ever heard it within these walls. But as he and Jean approached the cage, he suddenly realized that not all of the noise was coming from the crowd.

Something the size of a sparrow beat its wings against the mesh and buzzed angrily, a low thrumming sound that sent a shiver of pure animal dread up Locke's spine. "That's a fucking stiletto wasp," he whispered to Jean, who nodded vigorously in agreement.

Locke had never been unfortunate enough to encounter one of the insects personally. They were the bane of several large tropical islands a few thousand miles to the east, far past Jerem and Jeresh and the lands detailed on most Therin maps. Years before, Jean had found a gruesome account of the creatures in one of his natural philosophy books and read it aloud to the other Gentlemen Bastards, ruining their sleep for several nights.

They were called stiletto wasps on account of descriptions the rare survivors gave of being stung by them. They were as heavy as songbirds, bright red in colour, and their stinging abdomens were longer than a grown man's middle finger. Possession of a stiletto wasp queen in any Therin city-state was punishable by death, lest the things should ever gain a foothold on Therin soil. Their hives were said to be the size of houses.

A young man ducked and wove inside the cage, dressed in nothing more protective than a silk tunic, cotton breeches and short boots. Thick leather gauntlets were his weapons as well as his only armour; they were wedded to bracers buckled around his forearms, and he kept his hands up before his face like a boxer. With gloves like that a man could certainly contemplate swatting or crushing a stiletto wasp — but he would have to be very quick and very sure of himself.

On a table at the opposite side of the cage sat a heavy wooden cabinet, fronted with dozens of mesh-covered cells, a few of which were already open. The rest, judging by the noise, were crammed full of highly agitated stiletto wasps just waiting to be released. "Master Kosta! Master de Ferra!"

The shout carried across the noisy crowd but even so was hard to pinpoint. Locke had to look around several times before he could spot the source — Maracosa Durenna, waving to him and Jean from her place at one of the tables against a far wall.

Her black hair was pulled back into a sort of fan-tail around a gleaming silver ornament, and she was smoking from a curved silver pipe almost as long as her arm. Bands of white iron and jade slid against one another on her left wrist as she beckoned Locke and Jean across the room. They raised eyebrows at each other but pushed their way through the crowd toward her, and were soon standing beside her table.

"Where have you been these past few nights? Izmila has been indisposed, but I" ve been cruising the waters with other games in mind."

"Our apologies, Madam Durenna," said Jean. "Matters of business have kept us elsewhere. We occasionally consult on a freelance basis for very… demanding clients." "There was a brief trip over water," added Locke. "Negotiations concerning futures in pear cider," said Jean. "We came highly recommended by former associates," said Locke.

"Pear cider futures? What a romantic and dangerous sort of trade you two must ply. And are you as accomplished at stake-placing in futures as you are at Carousel Hazard?"

"It stands to reason," said Jean, "or else we wouldn't have the funds to play Carousel Hazard."

"Well then, how about a demonstration? The cage duel. Which participant do you believe to have a happier prospect for the future?"

In the cage, the free stiletto wasp darted toward the young man, who swatted it out of the air and crushed it beneath one of his boots with an audible juicy crack. Most of the crowd cheered.

"Apparently, it's too late for our opinion to matter one way or the other," said Locke. "Or is there more to the show?"

"The show's only just started, Master Kosta. That hive has one hundred and twenty cells. There's a clockwork device opening the doors, mostly at random. He might get one at a time, he might get six. Eye-catching, isn't it? He can't leave the cage until he's got one hundred and twenty wasps dead at his feet, or…" She punctuated the sentence with a deep intake of smoke from her pipe and a raising of both her eyebrows. "I believe he's killed eight so far," she finished.

"Ah," said Locke. "Well… if I had to choose, I'd be inclined to favour the boy. Call me an optimist."

"I do." She let two long streams of smoke fall out of her nose like faint grey waterfalls, and she smiled. "I would take the wasps. Shall we call it a wager? Two hundred solari from me, one hundred apiece from each of you?"

"I'm as fond of a small wager as the next man, but let's ask the next man — Jerome?" "If it's your pleasure, madam, our coin-purses are yours to command."

"What a font of gracious untruths you two are." She beckoned one of Requin's attendants, and the three of them pledged their credit with the house for markers. They received four short wooden sticks engraved with ten rings apiece. The attendant recorded their names on a tablet and moved on; the tempo of the betting around the room was still rising.

In the cage, two more murderously annoyed insects wriggled out of their enclosures and took wing toward the young man.

"Did I mention," said Durenna as she set her pair of markers down atop her little table, "that the death of nearby wasps seems to excite the others to a higher state of frenzy? That boy's opponents will become angrier and angrier as the fight goes on."

The pair currently free in the enclosure looked angry enough; the boy was dancing a lively jig to keep them away from his back and flanks. "Fascinating," said Jean, working a series of specific hand gestures into his mannerisms as he craned his neck to watch the duel. There were a few creative uses of fairly limited signals in Jean's message, but Locke eventually sorted the gist of it out: Do we really have to stay to watch this with her?

He was about to answer when a familiar hard weight fell on his left shoulder.

"Master Kosta," said Selendri before Locke had even finished turning. "One of the Priori wishes to speak to you on the sixth floor. A small matter. Something concerning… card tricks. He said you" d understand."

"Madam," said Locke, "I, ah, would be only too happy to attend. Can you let him know that I'll be with him shortly?"

"Better," she said with a half-smile that didn't move the devastated side of her face at all. "I can escort you myself, to greatly speed your passage."

Locke smiled as though that was exactly what he would have wished, and he turned back to Madam Durenna with his hands spread out before him.

"You do move in interesting circles, Master Kosta. Best hurry; Jerome can tend your wager, and share a drink with me."

"A most unlooked-for pleasure," said Jean, already beckoning an attendant to order that drink.

Selendri didn't waste another moment; she turned and stepped into the crowd, setting course for the stairs on the far side of the circular room. She moved quickly, with her brass hand cradled in her flesh hand before her like an offering, and the throng parted almost miraculously. Locke hurried along in her wake, keeping just ahead of the crowd as it closed up again behind him like some colony of scuttling creatures briefly disturbed in its chores. Glasses clinked, ragged layers of smoke twirled in the air and wasps buzzed.