The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  “Oh, but you are. If He allows you to speak in His name, and you lie, then He is weak or a liar or absent. You are Orholam here on earth, and in a way, so was I. But one of us is finished with the lies and dodging responsibility.”

  “How is it, my friend, that after all this climb, your heart is still hard against one who loves you most?”

  “What you want’s impossible. Fuck you, friend,” Gavin said. “I’m sorry I ever saved you.”

  The old prophet seemed unperturbed. “I’ll be here praying for you. That is, unless you do me some violence that prevents it. That edge over there will see me miss the chute and fall to my death.”

  The fires of rage burned only for a few moments more. Without further fuel, they dimmed. The old man wouldn’t fight him.

  Did Gavin really want to kill another person who didn’t resist?

  “No,” Gavin said. “Killing deluded old men is exactly what I got tired of doing with my life. Plus I’m not going to let you die thinking you’re a martyr.”

  He turned away. The gap remained. The gap was impossible.

  Whatever happened to ‘Impossible is what I do’?

  The penitent’s robes held Gavin’s boon-stone burdens wonderfully, but they were burdens nonetheless. And heavy, no matter how well carried.

  “Tell me again. What exactly happens if I fall?” Gavin asked.

  “You slide down to the bottom, where you may either give up or climb again.”

  “All the way to the bottom? Are there shortcuts on the way back up? Ladders or something you didn’t tell me about the first time? Is it easier the second time? I learned my lessons on my first trip, O wise and great master.”

  Orholam shook his head. “Oh! But there is an important bit I may not have told you? Didn’t I tell you that where the celestial realm and ours overlap, time works somewhat differently?”

  “Yes.” And I totally believed you.

  “It’s nearly Sun Day now.”

  “What?” Gavin asked. It had certainly seemed a long climb, but long as in days, not weeks.

  “If you fall? Your next climb will take a year. The next try takes ten. Some few have left behind all their lives and family to climb for a century, perhaps more.”

  “I know. You said that. I just didn’t really believe you. We didn’t see anyone else on our climb.”

  “And yet we passed many, and more passed us. You think the creator of the Thousand Worlds has made only one path of pilgrimage?”

  Okay, lots of religious obfuscation there, but it was possible that there was some sort of anomaly here on this island that made time seem warped. If so, it made sense that primitive peoples would build a monument in such a place. How perception and reality overlapped with will-casting was something Gavin didn’t understand well. No one did, he thought. He had to take the threat seriously.

  Whether it was all lies or all the truth, though, he had to finish this climb.

  He had no way of knowing if the chute was intact. A fall could well kill him, even if it wasn’t meant to. Maybe it was true and earlier pilgrims had had multiple chances. That didn’t matter. Gavin had to make it on the first try. Full stop.

  He had to get to the top before Sun Day, or Karris would die. Magic had to die, or Karris would.

  One try.

  “Well, it’s not like I haven’t been here before,” Gavin said, looking off the edge.

  “On a real pilgrimage?” Orholam asked.

  “How ’bout you pray silently, and not fall to your death?” Gavin suggested.

  Orholam shut up. For once.

  “Here, as in facing the impossible, with no help, certainly not from you,” Gavin said.

  Seven gates he’d cleared, claiming seven stones he was supposed to be able to redeem to get seven boons. Gavin had planned out what boons he’d asked of Orholam, too, with feebly growing hope in his heart:

  1. That Karris will live

  2. That I recover my powers

  Perhaps this was a cheat, asking too many things, for it would require the restoration of his color vision, and to be able to draft all his colors again, and to split light again. He didn’t know how legalistic Orholam would be with His boons, or how general Gavin could be, or how audacious the boons requested could be. But audacity had served him well in his life.

  3. That I get vengeance on those who have wronged me

  4. That I will reign again as Prism

  5. That Kip will get the father he deserves

  Whether that would be Gavin himself (only better than he was now), or if that was some other father figure, Gavin didn’t know. Either, maybe.

  6. That I will save the Seven Satrapies

  Not just limp along through this war, but really, really make it. Thrive, even.

  7. That Karris will forgive me

  Maybe that was too much to ask. Maybe the boons couldn’t force people to do what they didn’t want to do. That would be the kind of stricture Orholam would abide, wouldn’t it? Something easier, then:

  7. That Marissia will find happiness

  Yeah, she deserved that. That she would have an overflowing life somewhere, with someone better to her than he’d been.

  That was the order, too. Funny, his priorities. The only one he thought was in an acceptable place was the first: Karris. Even a year ago, he’d not have put that there.

  And really, the survival of the Seven Satrapies should be his highest priority.

  Only one goal was fully un-self-interested. Nope, wait: No, not even saving the Seven Satrapies was really disinterested, was it? Hard to be the Prism over nothing, wasn’t it?

  “What do you call it when you realize you’ve been an asshole your whole life?” Gavin asked.

  “A good start?” Orholam offered.

  Gavin opened the pocket that held the boon stone for overcoming Lust. A beautiful green stone, Orholam had told him. Beautiful and weighty.

  ‘That Marissia Will Find Happiness’ lay heavy in his hand as he hefted it.

  I didn’t come this far to only come this far.

  He tossed the boon stone off the side of the tower. Something shifted in the world, or in him, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

  No matter. He couldn’t make the jump while he was still weighed down with so much.

  He opened the pocket that held Greed’s boon stone, but it caught in his fingers. He had to think for a long time what boon he would sacrifice here. In the end, he decided to give up ‘That I Will Reign Again as Prism.’ He tossed the orange stone aside and instantly felt lighter.

  He shrugged his shoulders, tested how his body felt.

  He stared heavenward, and dread filled him.

  I feel lighter because I’m giving up my hopes.

  “What are you doing?” Orholam asked.

  “You know the thing about me?” Gavin asked.

  “I know many things about you.”

  “The most important one.”

  “I think I’m not supposed to say aloud what I think that is,” Orholam said. “I could pray for wisd—”

  “I’ll do whatever I must to win.”

  “A universal failing of the Guiles.”

  Next pocket, opened. Sloth’s stone.

  ‘That I Will Save the Seven Satrapies’ dropped by the wayside.

  It was a death.

  “I should have known,” Gavin said, “that any hope You’d give would be short-lived. Deceptive. You are astonishing in Your parsimony. You give and You take away, I suppose? Is that what we humble pilgrims are to learn?”

  “It seems to me that He’s taking nothing from you,” Orholam said. “You’re throwing them aside.”

  “The gap’s too wide!” Gavin snarled.

  But words changed nothing.

  Red. Dagnu’s stone. Gluttony. Kip. Was asking for happiness for Kip somehow Gavin being gluttonous?

  It wasn’t. Sure, Gavin wanted everything. Could never ask enough. But wasn’t asking a boon for Kip selfless? How could Orholam oppose that?
<
br />   I want to give him something so good, he’ll never ask for the truth about his real father, whom I killed.

  Gavin looked at the red boon stone. Sorry, Kip. You deserve better.

  He tossed the stone aside, closing his eyes.

  He bounced on his feet as if unaffected, testing his weight. Still too heavy, too encumbered. Three stones left. He knew what he should toss aside next. He opened sub-red. Anat’s stone, goddess of Wrath. His vengeance. If Orholam made him focus his request, what would he choose? Vengeance on all wights for Sevastian’s murder, as his Great Goal had once been? Vengeance on Koios White Oak for this damned war? Or was he pettier than that, his world even more constricted? Vengeance on his father?

  He touched the raw wound that was the sub-red boon stone.

  Tossing it away was like tearing away a scab that had an unhealed wound beneath it.

  The warmth fled from the world, and it took some of the life from Gavin’s limbs with it.

  If I recover my powers, I can take vengeance myself. With my powers, I’m Prism Gavin Guile. With my powers, I can do anything. This time I won’t waste it.

  Now he had only two boons left he could ask: First, that Karris would live—that she would triumph! Yes, he would be audacious on her behalf. Second, that he recover all his powers, fully, with the full span of his years left in them, that he could last another twenty-one years as Prism, at least. With only two boons, he’d ask no half measures.

  Gavin began limbering up his muscles. He checked the very edge of the precipice for grip, both as he would launch into his jump and where he would land. He would roll on the other side, he thought.

  “When you fall, do you wish me to climb with you again, or do you want to come alone?” Orholam asked. “My instructions weren’t clear about if I was supposed to accompany you for more than one attempt.”

  Gavin didn’t deign to reply. He walked to the very edge. He examined it as if this were complicated.

  It wasn’t. He couldn’t make it across. Certainly not so burdened.

  He pulled the last two boon stones out: ‘That Karris Will Live’ and ‘That I Recover My Powers.’

  He weighed them in his hands.

  If he fell, the next trip would take a year.

  He didn’t have a year. Nor did she. She’d be dead.

  Fine, God. I can save her myself.

  He hesitated before he could toss aside the blue that was her boon, though.

  This isn’t me putting my powers above her life. I can’t trust Orholam. I can’t trust anyone but myself.

  This is… this is me committing myself to using my powers for her. I can’t do anything for her if I’m dead. I gotta look out for myself first. For a little while. So I can serve everyone.

  He threw away Karris’s life.

  His throat tightened. Without turning, he said, “You tell Orholam, next time you see Him, that this is bullshit. This whole thing. Everything He’s done. All of it.”

  “Seems to me you’ll do what you have to in order to be able to go tell Him yourself, Guile.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  “It also seems to me that if you tossed the sword aside instead, you might be able to carry a couple of those stones. But what do I know?”

  Somehow, Gavin hadn’t even thought of the sword. He’d grown accustomed to the makeshift scabbard banging against him with every step.

  “The sword’s like my testicles, friend,” Gavin said.

  “Not the genitalia one usually hears a sword compared to.”

  “It can get in my way. It’s a weak spot, but not one I’m willing to part with. Losing the sword is not an option.”

  So long as he had the sword, perhaps he could compel Orholam to give him a boon. Or kill Him, as Grinwoody demanded. But Gavin would do what it took. Whatever it took.

  But he hadn’t turned away from the gap as he spoke. He cracked open his left eye—the crystalline black eye—and he saw his trajectories. A hundred different attempts played out in front of him: he jumped too early; he stumbled on the last step; he tried to run along the wall for a few steps and then leap.

  Again and again, he fell short, his body slamming into the wall on the other side, rebounding off the stones and into the abyss. There was no case even where he just barely grabbed the edge and then clambered up. Going from a full sprint to a full stop by colliding with a stone wall didn’t leave a human grabbing much of anything.

  Odd that the eye didn’t account for the wind, he thought. Too irregular, perhaps. But it gusted fitfully up and across the gap, sometimes with startling force. It would certainly confound attempts at a wall run: a wrong gust would blast his feet from any step, and any lost step would mean a fall.

  “Burn in hell, Orholam,” Gavin said. He tossed the last boon stone aside.

  “Why do you cling so tightly?” Orholam asked.

  Now he looked again. The cold rationality of the black jewel showed him it was still too far. Just barely too far, but too far.

  Tight, ill-fitting, pulling at his legs with every stride, the pilgrim’s clothes had only been good for their pockets. Gavin stripped them off.

  “Unique approach,” Orholam said. “It may make for some real discomfort as you shoot down the, um, chute.”

  “I don’t intend to fall,” Gavin said.

  “No one intends to fall,” Orholam said. “Well. Except me. I intend to fall. So not really fall, I guess. Jump.”

  Still too far on all but the luckiest jump.

  Gavin tore his pilgrim’s clothes into strips, cutting them with the edge of the Blinding Knife where necessary. He bound the pieces together into a makeshift rope and then tied it around the hilt. He checked and double-checked his knots.

  Then, before he went through with his stupid plan, he walked to the edge of the precipice again, set the sword at his feet, and looked at the jump through the cold eye of death.

  Sure enough, he could still louse this up. But if he didn’t carry the sword, more than half the time, he would clear the gap.

  Those were the best odds he’d faced in years.

  “Are you going to try what I think you’re going to try?” Orholam asked.

  “If you think it’s a stupid idea, I agree with you,” Gavin said. “So shut up.”

  He checked the rope yet again. No way was he going to come this far and then drop the Blinding Knife out into the abyss because he was careless.

  The top of the tower was only a single level above him now: one gap and a single corkscrew turn of the stairs. With his hand protruding into empty air, he could spin the sword on the rope like a sling and toss it up onto the roof.

  It took him half a dozen tries to get the sword to land above him, on the crown of the tower, and stick… up there somewhere. He had no idea what it looked like up there, so he had no idea if this could work.

  His plan had been to throw the blade up there, jump the gap, and then run up to the roof to grab it again before Orholam Himself—or the magic nexus, or whatever—noticed.

  But the sword stuck, and when he tugged on the rope and it stayed stuck, he couldn’t help but hope that maybe one test in his life would turn out to be easier than he’d guessed. Maybe it was well and truly stuck. Maybe it could hold his weight. Maybe he could use the rope to swing across the gap. Maybe he could just climb the rope to the tower roof instead of risking his life on the jump.

  He pulled harder.

  The sword pulled free and flipped, speeding straight at his openmouthed face.

  He dodged out of the way at the last instant—and then nearly lost the rope and sword both from his nerveless fingers as the sword continued its fall.

  “Throwing a sharp sword into the sky and then tugging it at your face?” Orholam said. “Not the smartest thing I’ve seen you do.”

  “Probably not the dumbest either,” Gavin said. He started spinning the sword again.

  “Hard to say. Lotta contenders.”

  Gavin shook his head. “I’m kind of going to miss you,
old man.”

  “Only ‘kind of’?”

  “Only kind of.”

  It took Gavin another ten tries to get the blade to stay up there again. He pulled on it, and it slid easily off, almost striking him as it fell again.

  Telling himself that it was better to take a few hours now than to take a year to make the climb again, he threw the sword back up onto the top of the tower dozens of times more. It never stuck fast enough for him to be able to put his own weight on it and simply climb. The roof must have no convenient ledges, and the sword was certainly no grapnel.

  This was one test Gavin couldn’t completely break by cheating: he wouldn’t be climbing a rope to the top.

  He’d have to jump the gap.

  But at least he could do it without trying to hold a sword in his hand.

  After one last good throw, where the sword seemed to land deeper and thus more safely than most of his tosses, Gavin said, “If I hand you this rope, will you promise just to hold on to it until I get up there and can take it back?”

  “You’re trying to pull a fast one on the Creator Himself,” Orholam said. “You think I’m gonna help you with that?”

  “I thought maybe you’d just hold a fucking rope,” Gavin said. He spat at Orholam’s feet.

  Gavin spooled out the rope in his hand gingerly so as not to drop even the rope’s own small weight onto the blade balanced above. He released the rope slowly, hand hovering in case it dropped suddenly.

  But it stayed.

  “What is that sword to you, Guile?” Orholam asked.

  “It’s my hope,” Gavin said. “Be a pal and don’t throw it into the abyss, would ya?”

  “Guile.” Orholam shook his head, reproving. “You know better. If it falls, it will be from your ineptitude, not my intervention. Orholam lets men choose; how could I do otherwise?”

  Gavin took a deep breath. No point in delay. Delay would only give the winds time to nudge the blade toward the edge. Besides, he knew exactly where to place his feet to take the correct number of steps, and which type of jump was most likely to carry him across the chasm.

  “Goodbye, old man,” he said. “May we never see each other again.”