The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  The older woman fanned herself, though the morning was cool in Karris’s rooms high in the Chromeria. The head of the diplomatic corps had come out of retirement to serve in the satrapies’ time of need, and had proven herself a dozen times over.

  “Not guesses. He told me the numbers himself, and from my experience, what he said seemed right. Four hundred drafters, four thousand fighters. He said he’d like to recruit among the pilgrims and drafters visiting the Chromeria while he’s here, to pull together an expeditionary force against the White King. He would need to be in direct control, with a very specific writ of authority, and he gave details on exactly what funding, logistical support, and intelligence he’d need. It is quite impressive in both scope and completeness.”

  Taking up the pages and pages of requests, Karris was struck for a moment by the fact that she now knew exactly what all these numbers were. They all seemed in line, nothing excessive for the admittedly ambitious recruiting goals he had in mind. For whatever it was worth, her time training the drafters of the Chromeria was paying dividends.

  “You look at these?” Karris asked.

  “No indeed, High Lady,” Anjali Gates said. There was a whiff of indignation around her, but she was sweating.

  “They aren’t sealed. I’d not be offended,” Karris said.

  “They were from his hand to yours. That’s my trust, High Lady, and with it all my honor,” Anjali said.

  Karris flashed her eyebrows. Prickly sort. “Very well. You seemed, uh, discomfited. I’d supposed it was by what you’d read. Is it not?”

  Anjali Gates flushed redder. “Oh. My apologies, High Lady. Hot flash. Damned things. Never at a convenient hour.”

  “Ah,” Karris said awkwardly. Then she pretended not to feel awkward, which was also awkward, but hopefully only internally. Especially after the precedent Orea Pullawr had set, the White was often expected to be a mother figure. How can you be a mother figure to a woman old enough to be your own mother, especially when you miss such obvious signs?

  Karris took a breath, while Anjali Gates pretended (more artfully) not to feel awkward at all. Diplomats got good at that sort of thing, Karris supposed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to embarrass you,” Karris said. “I’m still learning.”

  “And if I may be so bold, learning very well, too, High Lady. You’ve engendered an enormous amount of trust in a difficult time. Most impressive.”

  Karris accepted the compliment with a nod of her head that didn’t break eye contact. The White—as any diplomat would tell her—should not bow to anyone.

  “Impressions of Danavis?” Karris asked.

  Gates was ready for this sort of thing. “A man utterly in command of himself and his people, and deeply, deeply admired by them and promptly obeyed. As reported previously, he was recently widowered. There is a real air of grief about him, but not brokenness. He looked several times to a portrait he keeps of her. No signs of drunkenness or dissipation. It should not surprise me if he harbors great stores of rage; however, it seems he keeps them under lock and key. No truth whatever, I’d hazard, to the rumors of her killing herself. Now, there were some other numbers he mentioned…” Anjali Gates then lowered her voice so that no one might overhear, despite that they were in Karris’s very rooms and no one other than Blackguards were in attendance. “He caught me when I caught him looking at her portrait, and he told me quite frankly that the Order of the Broken Eye had her assassinated so she might not help you with her visions. I asked if this suggested an alliance between the Order and the White King. He thought it likely, but said he had no proof.”

  Karris took a deep breath. The Order again. Aligned with the White King? Curse them to the deepest hell.

  “Are those numbers also in these papers?” Karris asked for any eavesdropping ears. “Oh, of course, that’s right, you didn’t look. I may have to have you write them down for me, though, if they’re not. I shan’t remember all of that with everything else I have on my mind.”

  Karris thumbed through the pages. It looked like Satrap Corvan Danavis expected to recruit a lot of her drafters for the fight. It wasn’t implausible from a practical standpoint: hot from the holy fervor of Sun Day, women and men might sign on for well nigh anything.

  But putting her drafters under Corvan’s command? Karris clucked her tongue. It certainly showed audacity—which was exactly what leading the fight against the White King would need.

  But where would he attack? Had his Seer of a wife told him things that he didn’t dare entrust to a diplomat messenger? Karris still believed her brother wanted to attack the Chromeria directly—but with what ships? From what port? When?

  If she could attack him instead, either at sea or, even better, with his ships still in port, the Seven Satrapies might end this war without even more devastation.

  Corvan might be the key to everything.

  “He says these requests aren’t meant as an opening to begin negotiations,” Anjali Gates said. “If you give him less than what he asks, he’ll be able to tell you what successes you can hope for from his campaign, but he believes that striking hard and as quickly as possible will be the only hope for the Seven Satrapies to avoid collapse next spring. He plans to sail away from here to begin his attack only a day or two after Sun Day, and asks that as soon as his ships are seen on the horizon arriving, we allow no more ships to exit our ports.”

  “He still hopes to surprise the White King,” Karris said. “It’s worth a try.” She knew her brother surely had many spies on both Big and Little Jasper, and one of them at least would try to sail to tell him about the arrival of unexpected forces.

  But with her small fleet of skimmers, her people could overtake and stop any ship of spies. Surprising the White King was actually quite possible.

  Apologizing again for her earlier gaffe, Karris dismissed the woman, and ushered in the next senior diplomat. This one to report the Ruthgari situation: Eirene Malargos was playing her cards close, stalling real action, but Karris’s spies had learned that her allies—and allies they seemed, still—had discovered the secret of how to make their own skimmers, albeit of a seemingly more rudimentary design than the Chromeria’s own.

  Of course they had. It was easier for friends to spy on you than enemies, she supposed. Eirene had ships staffed and provisioned, ready to sail, but was still summoning troops. She could delay Karris’s call to serve for as long as she wanted with that excuse. You can always wait for more troops, if you’re as rich as a Malargos.

  If Eirene were being honest with Karris, then she’d had no word from Kip’s forces up the river since about the last time Karris herself had heard from them. Eirene suspected bandits were seizing supplies going up the river and had intercepted messengers, so she had long since dispatched messengers overland to Kip. But she’d had no word back yet. Dammit.

  The scouts searching the seas for King Ironfist had found nothing. Dammit again.

  On Karris’s hunch, the Chromeria’s small fleet was patrolling between the Jaspers and the Ruthgari coast, but the next messenger reported nothing new from their scouts—which could actually be good news.

  The next reported a similar blank for those searching for the pirates who yearly preyed on the pilgrims who sailed for the Chromeria to celebrate Sun Day.

  Karris had hoped to sink every last pirate with her skimmers, though it was early yet for the pirates to hunt so close to the Chromeria. Usually they started their piracy at the farther ports as pilgrims embarked. The Blackguards had gone to those coastal cities, sending their own personnel to hunt pirates as well as they were able to, because they didn’t trust anyone else with the skimmers except Karris’s and Andross’s messengers.

  Maybe Karris could send the Blackguards out en masse when the pirates came closer, and deal them a blow they’d never forget.

  Maybe the pirate kings’ and queen’s fleets had tangled with Ironfist’s, and they’d done one another such damage that none of them would come this year!

  Right,
Karris, and maybe the heavens will open up and shower down warriors to save the day! And chocolate. That’d be nice. Maybe a hot cup of kopi?

  What Karris really needed was someone to serve her as she and Marissia had served the old White. She needed someone to recruit and manage her spies. She should choose Anjali Gates for the job: the woman was eminently capable, sharp, diligent, and exact, and willing to do excellent work without getting public recognition.

  The last was a rarity on the Jaspers.

  But Karris had delegated off so many duties already, only to add dozens more in taking over the drafters’ war training and in quietly bolstering the islands’ defenses, from refortifying walls that had had stones stolen from them for other construction over the years, to drilling the cannon crews of all the towers on overlapping fire and their supply chains for shot and powder if they ran out, to hiring the smiths to cast weapons and armor, to drilling free militias, even spurring on their training by offering prizes in archery competitions and melees.

  None of it had been as cheap as she’d promised Andross, but he hadn’t stopped her. Without ever saying a word of why, he acquiesced often now. It was almost as if he respected her a little, now. Almost.

  He hadn’t even demanded she stop meeting with her pet luxiats (as he called them). He seemed more amused that it had so infuriated some of the High Luxiats—and, she guessed, kept them busy being angry at her rather than at him.

  She should summon Ambassador Gates and give her the job now. She knew she should.

  But with all she’d passed off to other hands, the control of information was one thing she couldn’t bear to give to anyone. Not now, not when the Order had people everywhere.

  In peacetime, you might worry about a spy enriching a family unjustly or using their illicit knowledge to claim estates or negotiate or end trade agreements or even marriages. In wartime, though, a well-placed spy meant death for thousands. It could mean the death of the Seven Satrapies.

  There was a knock at the door. Ugh, another meeting.

  All this is what you were preparing me for, Orea, Karris thought, by putting me in charge of the spies. After my long tutelage everywhere else, you taught me to handle secrets and those who keep them. You taught me to judge whom to trust and how to trust someone halfway or three-quarters, rather than trusting fully or not at all, like I used to.

  Thank you, Orea. Thank you.

  Another knock.

  “Send them in,” Karris told her Blackguards.

  One more meeting, she promised herself, then I’m getting the hell out of here to go to that little kopi shop myself.

  Chapter 53

  “YOU…”

  The sound rose from a pitch so low Teia felt it first in her chest, but maybe that was only her anxious dreams. She rolled over. The closet was so small, no one could open it without the door pushing into her hip. This was as safe a place to sleep as anything got for her.

  “HAVE.” The voice had risen now, like a sea demon emerging from thalassic depths. Monstrous and raw, it was basso profundo deep, as if it had taken until now to find a cadence intelligible to her.

  “MY CLOAK!”

  The voice was a volcano rending the earth beneath her and vomiting fire past her face, the heat alone pummeling her into mute submission, agog, falling backward to tremble on uncertain ground.

  “You cannot hide for long, thief. I will find you and take what is mine, and I will teach you what eternity means. I will snatch you from this time to a place where we can be uninterrupted for decades of torture, and then I’ll bring you back, to your own family, your own home. You will betray your own father for one hour’s cessation of pain, and then I will take you again, until you have broken yourself, and you beg to torture by your own hand them whom once you loved. I will flay you, I will tear off your fingernails, I will grind your bones to spike shards and make you dance as they pierce your skin. I will impale you from anus to broken teeth on the axle of my war chariot before I ride into battle. But no matter what pain you come to know, you will heal every time I allow you nightmarish sleep. You will not die. I, who am the Lord of Flies, will never let you more than glimpse that bourne.”

  This was not a nightmare. From any nightmare Teia had ever known when asleep, she would have woken by now, sheets drenched, cheeks wet with tears. But she could not wake.

  This was not her psyche pawing through the jagged detritus of what had unsettled her in the day and sorting her fears. This wasn’t a twisted confusion of things she knew. This was stark clarity. And he used terms she’d never heard.

  This was not Teia speaking to herself.

  At her sudden certainty, her throat clenched, at war with a stomach rebelling to empty itself.

  Nor did he stop speaking.

  “You shall be the asymptote of suffering incarnate, beyond whose limit is insanity, a land whose surcease of sorrow you shall never know. Eventually, you will choose me over freedom, me over love, me over every good. I, Abaddon, will be your god.”

  His voice had risen through the stones beneath her like grasping vines, and now they wrapped around her, imprisoning her, prodding into every gap, sliding sibilant across her skin.

  “But whatever you say”—his voice had gone quieter, soothing, full of anticipation of pleasure—“however you praise me through your shattered nubs of teeth, no matter what you do or don’t do, you will never know an end to suffering. Never. Not when you have served me for ten thousand faithful years. Not when your very sun expels its last exhausted breath of light and collapses into cold, dark dirt. You will suffer until you beg for your suffering not to end, for I will give you such uncertain respite from pain that each beat of rest is counted only in anticipation of the entire orchestra of pain reaching a new crescendo for which you are unprepared, and your nerves will have healed and regained old capacity for feeling. You will beg, for the pain renewed will be pain redoubled.

  “Perhaps you hope I brag, perhaps you dare to disbelieve such suffering is possible, or you hope that you could not be so special to one such as I. And it’s true. You’re not special. For I have been offended before, and more grievously. But eternity is long, and the worlds are many, and time is vast when you may move about it at will. I am punishing a million such as you, even now. Would you like to see?”

  For one moment, as her emotions skittered uncontrollably like a drop of water on a steaming-hot pan, Teia felt a flash of queer gratitude. For one heartbeat, Breaker broke her free of quicksand fear with memories of his quicksilver humor at all the wrong times. Though not in so many words, Kip the Lip had taught her this:

  If you think you’re helpless, if you think you’re powerless; as long as you can speak, you’re not helpless, and you’re not powerless until you’re too afraid to. If you’re trapped in the darkness all alone, how do you know you’re alone and not actually surrounded by an army of friends, also silent, also afraid in the dark, merely waiting for the sound of one voice to rouse them from fear, to fight for freedom?

  Silence is isolation chosen. Silence is darkness, and every evil loves the dark.

  Kip, Kip the Lip? You marvelous wrong-girl-marrying turd, you gave me this cloak that’s gotten me out of and into every kind of mess, including this one. Kip, you tried to tell me about this guy, didn’t you? I thought you were crazy. Maybe I was right, and crazy’s contagious. But forget that. Kip, this one’s for you, buddy.

  “Eternity?” Teia interrupted, impressed. “That is a long time. And you’re going to talk for all of it, aren’t you? You’re wrong about me not dying, though. I’ll die of boredom.”

  It took Abaddon off guard. There was sudden quiet, and Teia felt those twisting tendrils of fear shrivel back.

  “Mortal, you have no—”

  “What, now you’re mad so you’re going to torture me worse? Longer? How’s that work?” Teia asked as if he were unbelievably stupid. “You play music? Me neither, but even I know that you never start at a fortissimo. There’s just no way you can go up. Raging alo
ng at a monotone as loud as possible? You’re like an eight-year-old boy, screaming every word, from a total lack of either control or awareness. So get out of here, kid. You bother me.”

  But the presence wasn’t gone. She hoped he was aghast at her audacity, that he would give up before her courage did.

  “Oh please, do go on with the insults and the terribly convincing defiance,” he said. “Because every word you speak helps me in my hunt for you. A young woman—that much is very helpful to know. Parian-born? Abornean perhaps? Lower-class, certainly, from the accent, with an urban muddle to it. Maybe raised in several cities? And uneducated, which usually goes with lower class, but not always. You claim not to play an instrument and then prove the truth of it by misusing terms. So, young—well, I won’t say ‘lady’—is there anything else you wish to say?”

  Oh, shit.

  “Yeah, one last thing,” Teia said. “Thanks for the cloak, you little bitch.”

  If Teia had thought that Abaddon had been shouting at her in a fortissimo, the sudden draconic roar of a hatred that stretched to the very bounds of infinity quibbled that perhaps the immortal’s former threats had been spoken sotto voce: her mortal ears simply weren’t capable of hearing more than the minutest modulations in the volume of his mammoth voice.

  The pressure of his scream clapped cupped hands on the ears of her mind, blowing blood from her every orifice at a pressure her psyche couldn’t contain.

  After she wandered a trackless season of dizzied pain, his voice descended to words that she could slowly begin to understand, now bated with acid malice. “You are an ant on the finger of a curious giant, daring to bite him. My amusement is at an end. You will soon know the—”

  And then he was gone. Like a soap bubble popped on a blade of grass. Just. Gone. Leaving only a stretchy film of horror over her.

  He knew her gender, her voice. Could guess she was on the Jaspers. And who else was close enough to Kip that he would entrust with such a treasure?