The Republic of Thieves

“Easy for you to say,” said Locke. “Let’s allow that maybe all you theoretically needed were some gardening tools and a little creativity; what you actually did was rain fire from the fucking sky. If your lot couldn’t rule the world with that …”

“Are you smarter than a pig, Locke?”

“On occasion,” said Locke. “There are contrary opinions.”

“Are you more dangerous than a cow? A chicken? A sheep?”

“Let’s be generous and say yes.”

“Then why don’t you go to the nearest farm, put a crown on your head, and proclaim yourself emperor of the animals?”

“Uh … because—”

“The thought of doing anything so ridiculous never crossed your mind?”

“I suppose.”

“Yet you wouldn’t deny that you have the power to do it, anytime you like, with no chance of meaningful resistance from your new subjects?”

“Ahhh—”

“Still not an attractive proposition, is it?” said Patience.

“So that’s really it?” said Jean. “Any half-witted bandit living on bird shit in the hinterlands would make himself emperor if he could, but you people, who actually can do it at will, are such paragons of reason—”

“Why sit in a farmyard with a crown on your head when you can buy all the ham you like down at the market?”

“You’ve banished ambition completely?” said Jean.

“We’re ambitious to the bone, Jean. Our training doesn’t give the meek room to breathe. However, most of us find it starkly ludicrous that the height of all possible ambition, to the ungifted, must be to drape oneself in crowns and robes.”

“Most?” said Locke.

“Most,” said Patience. “I did mention that we’ve had a schism over the years. You might not be surprised to hear that it concerns you.” She crooked two fingers on her left hand at Locke and Jean. “The ungifted. What to do with you. Keep to ourselves or put the world on its knees? Nobility would no longer be a matter of patents and lineages. It would be a self-evident question of sorcerous skill. You would be enslaved without restraint to a power you could never possess, not with all the time or money or learning in the world. Would you like to live in such an empire?”

“Of course not,” said Locke.

“Well, I have no desire to build it. Our arts have given us perfect independence. Our wealth has made that freedom luxurious. Most of us recognize this.”

“You keep using that word,” said Locke. “ ‘Most.’ ”

“There are exceptionalists within our ranks. Mages that look upon your kind as ready-made abjects. They’ve always been a minority, held firmly in check by those of us with a more conservative and practical philosophy, but they have never been so few as to be laughed off. These are the two factions I spoke of earlier. The exceptionalists tend to be young, gifted, and aggressive. My son was popular with them, before you crossed his path in Camorr.”

“Great,” said Locke. “So those assholes that came and paid us a visit in Tal Verrar, on your sufferance, don’t even have to leave the comforts of home for another go at us! Brilliant.”

“I gave them that outlet to leaven their frustration,” said Patience. “If I had commanded absolute safety for you, they would have disobeyed and murdered you. After that, I would have had no answer to their insubordination short of civil war. The peace of my society balances at all times on points like this. You two are just the most recent splinter under everyone’s nails.”

“What will your insubordinate friends do when we get to Karthain? Give us hugs, buy us beer, pat us on our heads?” said Jean.

“They won’t trouble you,” said Patience. “You’re part of the five-year game now, protected by its rules. If they harm you outright, they call down harsh retribution. However, if their chosen agents outmaneuver you, then they steal a significant amount of prestige from my faction. They need you to be pieces on the board as much as I do.”

“What if we win?” said Jean. “What will they do afterward?”

“If you do manage to win, you can naturally expect the goodwill of myself and my friends to shelter under.”

“So we’re working for the kindhearted, moral side of your little guild, is that what we should understand?” said Locke.

“Kindhearted? Don’t be ridiculous,” said Patience. “But you’re a fool if you can’t believe that we’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on the moral questions of our unique position. The fact that you’re even here, alive and well, testifies to that reflection.”

“And yet you hire yourselves out to overthrow kingdoms and kill people.”

“We do,” said Patience. “Human beings are afflicted with short memories. They need to be reminded that they have valid reasons for holding us in awe. That’s why, after very careful consideration, we still allow magi to accept black contracts.”

“Define ‘careful consideration,’ ” said Locke.

“Any request for services involving death or kidnapping is scrutinized,” said Patience. “Black work needs to be authorized by a majority of my peers. Even once that’s done, there needs to be at least one mage willing to accept the task.”

Patience cupped her left hand, and a silver light flashed behind her fingers. “You curious men,” she said. “I offer you the answers to damn near anything, secrets thousands of people have died trying to uncover, and you want to learn how we go about paying our bills.”

“We’re not done pestering you,” said Locke. “What are you doing there?”

“Remembering.” The silver glow faded, and a slender spike of dreamsteel appeared, cradled against the first two fingers of her hand. “You’re bold enough in your questions. Are you bold enough for a direct answer?”

“What’s the proposal?” said Locke, nibbling half-consciously at a biscuit.

“Walk in my memories. See through my eyes. I’ll show you something relevant, if you’ve got the strength to handle it.”

Locke swallowed in a hurry. “Is this going to be as much fun as the last ritual?”

“Magic’s not for the timid. I won’t offer again.”

“What do I do?”

“Lean forward.”

Locke did so, and Patience held the silver spike toward his face. It narrowed, twisted, and poured itself through the air, directly into Locke’s left eye.

He gasped. The biscuits tumbled from his hand as the dreamsteel spread in a pool across his eye, turning it into a rippling mirror. A moment later droplets of silver appeared in his right eye, thickening and spreading.

“What the hell?” Jean was torn between the urge to slap Patience aside and the sternness of her earlier warning not to interfere with her sorcery.

“Jean … wait …” whispered Locke. He stood transfixed, tied to Patience’s hand by a silver strand, his eyes gleaming. The trance lasted perhaps fifteen seconds, and then the dreamsteel withdrew. Locke wobbled and clutched the taffrail, blinking furiously.

“Holy hells,” he said. “What a sensation.”

“What happened?” said Jean.

“She was … I don’t know, exactly. But I think you’ll want to see this.”

Patience turned to Jean, extending the hand with the silver needle. Jean leaned forward and fought to avoid flinching as the narrow silver point came toward him. It brushed his open eye like a breath of cold air, and the world around him changed.