The Republic of Thieves

She moved toward them with that uncanny smooth glide facilitated by her elegant robe. “I know that you have only one true and immutable memory glowing dimly in that darkness before the Catchfire plague. A memory of your mother. A memory of her trade.”

“Seamstress,” muttered Locke.

“Yes,” said Patience, gesturing toward herself. “I have, after all, told you what my gray name was. The one I chose for myself, long before I was elevated to archedama—”

“Seamstress,” said Locke, “oh, no. Oh, fuck no. Fuck, no! You can’t be serious!”

2

SHE COMPOUNDED his dreadful sense of shock by laughing.

“I’m serious as cold steel,” she said with a faintly catlike grin. “You’ve made quite an amusing leap to the wrong conclusion, however. I assure you that the Falconer is my one and only child.”

“Gods,” said Locke, gasping with relief. “So what the hell are you on about?”

“I said your memory was immutable and true. But it’s nothing to do with your mother’s trade. In fact, it’s nothing to do with your mother at all. It’s me you remember.”

“And how in all the hells is that even possible?”

“There was once an extraordinarily gifted mage of my order, the youngest archedon in centuries. He earned his fifth ring when he was half my present age, and took on the office of Providence. He was my mentor, my very true friend. He was also blessed in love. His wife was Karthani, a stunning woman with a kind of beauty very rare among the Therin people. They were enchanted with one another. She died … far too young.

“It was an accident,” continued Patience, hesitantly, as though it pained her to produce each word. “A balcony collapse. I’ve told you that our arts have limitless capacity to cause harm, and scarcely any power to undo it. We can transmute; we can cleanse. Your poisoning was an alien condition that we could separate from your body. But against shattered bones and spilled blood, we’re helpless. We are ordinary. Ordinary as you.”

She glared at Locke with something like real anger.

“Yes,” she said, more slowly. “Ordinary as you are right now. The tragedy caused a terrible change in my friend. He made a grievous error of judgment.

“He became obsessed with fetching his wife back. Harsh experience teaches us that we cannot master death. Still, he fell into the trap of grief and self-regard. He convinced himself that such mastery was simply a matter of will and knowledge. Will that none had ever before mustered. Knowledge that none had ever revealed. He began to experiment with the most forbidden folly in all our arts—interference with the spirit after death. Transition of the spirit into new flesh. Do you know what a horror he would have conjured even if he’d been successful?”

“The gods would never allow such a thing,” whispered Locke, not sure he believed it but certain he wanted to. The image of Bug’s dead black sin-graven eyes flashed in his memory.

“For once I agree with you,” said Patience wryly. “But the gods are cruel. They don’t so much forbid this ambition as punish it. Life recoils from necromancy, like the inflammation of flesh from a venomous sting. The working of it produces malaise, sickness. It can’t be hidden. Eventually he was discovered, but the confrontation was badly handled. He managed to escape.”

Patience pushed her hood back. Sabetha seemed as rooted in place as Locke was, spellbound by the tale, barely breathing.

“Before his elevation to archedon, he’d used a gray name from Throne Therin. He called himself Pel Acanthus, White Amaranth. The unwithering flower of legend. It was only natural that after his madness and betrayal, we called him—”

“No,” whispered Locke. The strength went out of his legs. Sabetha wasn’t fast enough to catch him before his knees hit the floor.

“… Lamor Acanthus,” said Patience. “Black Amaranth. I see the name means something to you.”

“You can’t possibly know that name,” said Locke, his voice barely a croak. Even to his ears the denial sounded pathetic and childish. “You can’t.”

“I can,” said Patience, not gently. “Pel Acanthus was my friend, Lamor Acanthus my shame. Those names mean a great deal to me. They mean even more to you because they’re who you are.”

“What are you doing to him?” said Sabetha. Locke clung to her, shaking. His chest felt as though it was being squeezed in iron bands.

“Ending the mysteries,” said Patience, softening her tone. “Providing the answers. This man was once Lamor Acanthus of Karthain, once Archedon Providence of my order. Once a mage even more powerful than myself.”

She held up her left arm and let the robe sleeve fall away to reveal her five tattooed rings.

“I am not a gods-damned mage,” said Locke, hoarsely.

“Not anymore,” said Patience.

“You’re making this shit up!” said Locke, enunciating each word, willing them into some sort of emotional talisman. “So you know a … a name. I admit that I’m astonished. But I am … I don’t know how old I am, exactly, but I can’t be yet thirty. Thirty! This man you’re talking about would be older than you!”

“Originally,” said Patience. “And in a manner of speaking you still are.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Twenty-three years ago, an orphan with no past appeared in the aftermath of a deadly plague. Didn’t I just tell you what happens when our most forbidden art is practiced? A dreadful backlash against life itself. Sickness. The Black Whisper that came out of nowhere. Lamor Acanthus was in Camorr, hidden away in the hovels of Catchfire. That’s where you continued your studies, using the poor and the forgotten as your subjects.”

“Oh, bullshit—”

“We know,” said Patience. “There was a sorcerous event in Camorr before the plague erupted. Several members of my order were near enough to feel it. When the quarantine was lifted, our people were there in force. We sifted Catchfire house by house, until we found our answer. Magical apparatus. The papers and diaries of Lamor Acanthus, along with his body, plainly identifiable by the tattooed rings. And so we thought the matter was ended, horribly, but ultimately for the better.

“Years passed. Then came the unpleasant business involving my son. It brought you to our attention. You and Jean were carefully examined. Particularly Jean, since our possession of his red name made things so much easier. Imagine the intensity of our surprise when he told us that his closest friend, a Camorri orphan, had confessed to the secret name of Lamor Acanthus.”

“You … told Jean your true name?” said Sabetha. Locke desperately insisted to himself that he was only imagining the hurt beneath her surprise.

“I, uh, well … shit.” His wits, smashed to paste, couldn’t seem to make the heroic effort required to rouse themselves. “I always meant to tell you. I just—”

“He told Jean a true name,” said Patience. “But there’s still another, isn’t there? You’ve got gray names under gray names, Locke. Lamor Acanthus no more gives me the key to you than Locke Lamora or Leo-canto Kosta or Sebastian Lazari does. Beneath it all is another name, the one my mentor would never have shared with another mage. So I don’t know what it is … perhaps you don’t even remember it. But you and I both know it’s there.”

“I’m not what you say I am.” Locke slumped in Sabetha’s arms, despondent. “I was born in Camorr.”

“Your body was. Don’t you see? Lamor Acanthus succeeded, after a fashion.