The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  But all the things that made it a great place to meet clandestinely (as so many did) seemed to Teia to also make it the worst place to meet clandestinely: because so many did. Everyone was watching to see who everyone else was meeting with.

  A certain kind of spy might enjoy hiding in plain sight, but Teia couldn’t believe that the leadership of the Order of the Broken Eye would be so brazen. They weren’t a brazen bunch.

  She watched from a safe distance as he made the rounds, nodding to people who seemed engrossed in other meetings and dropping a quick word here and there with others, and had a longer, amenable conversation with someone who looked like a floor manager of the Crossroads, then took sips from a number of wineglasses a pretty young slave brought out on a tray, apparently discussing them with the manager.

  Of course. Atevia was wine merchant to the nobility. The Crossroads would be a major account, or had the potential to be one, Teia supposed. Atevia was here for his actual business. Maintaining contacts with a huge number of important people was simply part of his job.

  As Atevia seemed to be concluding his work with the manager, Teia slid closer.

  The manager slipped out from their table and said, “Oh, there are some barrels in the cellar that I’m afraid have gone bad. Could you check on those for me?”

  Atevia grinned and said, “Well… if you insist.”

  “Oh, I do,” the manager said, winking. “There’s a new, ahem, barrel I think you really need to sample.”

  Teia actually thought they were still talking about work until Atevia reached a hand down to adjust himself on the stairs.

  Oh, gods, she really was naïve. Conspiratorial winks? The new barrel Atevia needed to sample… in the basement, which happened to be a brothel?

  Dammit, T, how naïve can you be?

  Teia had given up her chance to kill Murder Sharp—not to do anything productive, not to save anyone, but to wait around while Atevia emptied his coin purse before his big meeting tonight.

  Suddenly, a bubbling cauldron of bile in her boiled and spilled over, hissing and spitting as it hit the flames of Teia’s frustration and disappointment.

  She wanted to wreck this man. She wanted to ruin him. She was going to follow him to his whore. She’d experiment on him: see if she could make him go limp, then back off, let him get aroused again, then make him go limp again. Hell, maybe she could figure out how to trigger his climax before he even touched the woman. That might be handy, too, not least for Teia to protect herself in the future—assuming she had one. And such practice wasn’t exactly possible on terrified slaves, who don’t tend to spend much time aroused.

  As she followed Atevia into the Crossroad’s basement, she knew she was acting out of all proportion.

  She barely knew this man. Why did she hate him so particularly? Why did she want to punish this one so much?

  Something about him grated her. So he was stupid, lustful, deceitful, small. Murder Sharp was worse—a hundred times worse—and she didn’t hate him, not exactly. She feared Sharp. Hated how vulnerable he made her feel, tried to convince herself she could stop him from making her feel that way again, but she didn’t despise him.

  A beautiful hostess in a white silk chemise that barely hung past her pudenda greeted Atevia at the base of the stairs. She clearly recognized him.

  The hostess’s dark kinked hair was a perfect halo around her head, and when she walked, leading Atevia to a room, she stepped as if walking on a rope, her hips swaying with each deliberate step.

  Atevia didn’t look anywhere else.

  The woman glanced back over her shoulder, saw his appreciation, and smiled beatifically. She was either a very good mummer or she actually enjoyed her work.

  Amazing how we deceive ourselves, and tell ourselves we do good, Teia thought.

  And then she was struck with the thought that maybe she wasn’t exempt from that ‘we.’ This woman helped men cheat on their wives; Teia murdered people. She couldn’t really look down on her. The woman was most likely a slave herself, making the best of a bad life she hadn’t asked for.

  Teia was the last person who should be judging her, but Teia’s hatred was like a flame right now, lashing about, looking for fuel to feed on wherever it could.

  She tried to hold off that fire, push it toward some barren, analytical place.

  Why did she hate this man who seemed beguiled by the lowest of sins, lust? A mere sin of the body, of weakness. It was common, trivial.

  Yet entangling. Teia’s own mother had—

  It hit Teia in the face.

  Atevia Zelorn was the very image of Teia’s mother. Blinded by lust, choosing to disregard the suffering of those who loved them, Atevia was selling out his family, while Teia’s mother had literally sold her family. Teia’s father had tried to give mother all the better things in life she said she needed, and had traveled farther and farther abroad to get them for her—which had only given her more opportunity to cheat on him.

  Teia was going to destroy Atevia Zelorn for his treachery, but his treason to the Chromeria seemed paltry to her compared to how he’d betrayed his family. As her mother had.

  And for what? For orgasms with strangers?

  Teia hadn’t had one yet, but to her it looked like the pleasure was something better than a good drunk but less intense than a poppy high. That couldn’t be enough to destroy yourself over, could it?

  But that wasn’t all there was to cheating, was there? Her mother had seemed as eager for the sops to her vanity as she was for the lovemaking itself.

  What did Atevia Zelorn gain for his treachery? Money? He had money. If he had more, what would he use it for? More visits to brothels? Chasing whores’ feigned care when he had a woman who loved him back home?

  Teia was going to wreck him, and when she killed him, she’d do it so the family wasn’t humiliated, so they didn’t have to pay for his sins. But he was going to pay—as her own mother had never had to.

  The room had an antechamber, and the hostess held open the door but went no farther.

  Teia slipped inside behind Atevia.

  He closed the door behind him, locked it, and opened a side bureau. A curtain separated this antechamber from the rest of the room. As Atevia began undressing—no thanks—Teia streamed paryl at the curtain.

  It was impenetrable to her gaze, filled with some metal. Huh?

  She heard a door far on the other side of the curtain close and then a lock being slid home. What was this?

  She turned and saw Atevia pulling on white robes. He draped a chain-mail veil over his face.

  Teia’s heart almost stopped. The veil. This wasn’t a visit to a prostitute. This was the meeting.

  Everything before this was pretense: the cellar barrel tasting was a pretense for a visit to a prostitute, which was the pretense for this.

  Unfortunately, after he was dressed, Atevia stepped through the curtain without holding it open far enough for Teia to come in, too. He closed it carefully behind himself, shutting Teia out.

  She could hear the men’s voices clearly enough, but they exchanged greetings in some language Teia didn’t understand, that she didn’t even recognize.

  Orholam have mercy, was the Order so good at keeping secrets that the leaders only spoke Braxian?

  But apparently not all the men (three men? four?) were equally adept with the tongue. While a tenor gave his report fluently, he had to stop several times to clarify words for one of the others. “Yes, the bane,” the tenor said. “All of them, if he is to be believed.” Then he went back into Braxian. Then later, at a cough from the same man, who was confused again, the tenor said, “C’mon, bawaba, you have to know the word. We use it in our own ceremonies!”

  “I just didn’t hear you,” the man complained. His voice seemed oddly familiar.

  Teia wondered if Quentin knew Braxian. Or could learn it quickly. Well, of course he could learn it quickly. There were two books in Quentin’s world: The Book of Everything Quentin Knows, and The Book
of Everything Quentin Will Surely Know Soon.

  But what was she going to do? Magic him into the room? Write down everything they said phonetically?

  Good luck with that, T.

  Then Atevia gave his own report. He was fluent, damn him.

  When the slow one asked him to translate a word, Atevia did so by using other Braxian vocabulary, which was apparently helpful enough for the other man—though not for Teia.

  Yet another man spoke, and Teia heard the rumble of the voice distorter. Given how the others deferred to him, she guessed that could only be the Old Man of the Desert himself. He spoke the longest, with frequent questions for and from all of them, but Teia understood none of it except one instance of the word ‘black powder’ in a sentence otherwise unintelligible.

  Apparently old Braxian had no word for that.

  Wonderful.

  Fragmentary as it was, she’d heard ‘black powder,’ ‘bane,’ and ‘gates.’ That, and the instructions that the faithful prepare themselves and bring their weapons.

  When wasn’t clear. To the Feast? After the Feast? Halfcock had said they had a plan, but what was it?

  She’d been assuming the entire reason for the meeting was all last-second preparations for the Feast tomorrow night.

  The least fluent one began his report. He had a nasal baritone, and he quickly gave up. “I’m sorry, I’m working on it, but by the Diakoptês, having to puzzle out how to actually speak Braxian from old scrolls? And it’s not like I have any chances to practice with anyone. I can’t—”

  “Enough, proceed,” the Old Man said.

  Teia could hardly pay attention to him, though. From the lack of tension and the lapsing out of Braxian, it was clear that the more sensitive part of the meeting was finished. From here, she could tail one of the others, and from learning his identity, eventually reveal one additional congregation from that one additional priest. But if she were lucky, she could follow the Old Man of the Desert himself.

  “There’s a problem with the, the abad el shams. Shit, that’s not right… the poppies. We have none.” Oh, that was it! This priest had sounded familiar. He was the one with the haze smoker’s harsh voice who’d ordered Teia to strip when they’d initiated her into the Order.

  That bastard.

  “Ezay deh?” the Old Man demanded.

  “The Chromeria’s been buying them up for medical supplies. One of our regular sources admitted that he’d guessed we wouldn’t pay him as much as the Chromeria would, and he was too afraid to try to charge us more, so he sold all he had to them. He is willing to procure toad caps for us, though.”

  “Those taste positively foul. I can’t bring a wine strong enough to cover the taste! Even with incense and spices,” Atevia said, lapsing out of the Braxian as well.

  “We could simply do without,” the other man said. “As the old saying goes, ‘Erdah be El sada lehad matofrago,’ right? Or with enough honey…”

  The Old Man sighed. “I’ll arrange for enough poppy to be accidentally released from the Chromeria’s stores. Which of you will pick it up? Murder Sharp maak yakhod balo menak.”

  Murder Sharp what? What the hell was that?

  “I can get it,” Atevia said glumly. “Directions?”

  Those, naturally, were all given in Braxian.

  Teia wondered what would happen if she tried to kill these men here and now. Orholam, if she’d been thinking, she could have brought a grenado packed with shrapnel. With her skills and her cloak, though, what were her chances of killing them all if she went into that room now?

  If she attacked though, even if she killed them all, she wouldn’t get the list of all the members—and she needed that list. Without it, the Order could start right back up again. And she wouldn’t find out where they had her father.

  So she had to follow the Old Man. He was the center of everything. Follow him, identify him, wait until he went to his secret office. Then Teia could kill him and be certain the Order would implode.

  She was close now, close to success for the first time. Close to saving her father.

  They’d all entered the room from different directions, so it made sense they would leave different ways, too. And all cloaked and hooded, no doubt. She thought she’d gleaned as much as she could from eavesdropping—they were just talking about who was going to bring the drugs and alcohol to the party now, and not even in Braxian. Now she concentrated on getting the positioning of each of the priests within the room to try to give herself the best chance of following the correct one when they all left.

  She was going to have to make a guess on which one to tail. The Old Man of the Desert had his paryl spectacles.

  Teia would have to be masterful.

  She guessed that the men would at least leave the room by the same ways they’d entered, in order to change back into their street clothes. That meant being in this room was useless to her. She already knew where Atevia lived.

  It was time for Teia to gamble with her life yet again.

  Invisible, she put an ear to the outer door. She couldn’t hear anything. Pricey brothel, give it that—thick walls so you didn’t hear what your neighbors were doing. More importantly, she supposed, they didn’t hear you. She was going to have to risk it.

  She eased the door open far enough to peek, saw the hostess leading a woman down the hall. Teia closed the door quietly. She extended paryl below the door and across the hall and waited. When she felt someone break the tendrils, she waited another couple of heartbeats and then eased the door open.

  The hall was empty. The hostess was five paces farther down, showing the woman to a room.

  The halls were a rabbit’s warren—much larger than she would have guessed from above. Within a minute or so, though, Teia had scoped out several entrances to a larger chamber, where the Order’s high priests were meeting, and a few nooks in which she might hide without using paryl.

  None too soon, either. She was standing at an intersection when a door opened on each side. Identical cloaked figures stepped out simultaneously. She was on the opposite side from where Atevia had entered, so neither of these men were him. She had only two choices, and the Old Man of the Desert might not have been either of these men.

  It was the flip of a coin.

  This is on You, Orholam. If You want me—

  The man to her left bobbed his head as he turned his back toward her and raised a finger toward his face as if pushing up a pair of spectacles.

  Spectacles? Like the paryl spectacles the Old Man had?

  Now the question was how far they worked. Teia could see paryl about thirty or forty paces out in sunlight, maybe twice that far in the dark. Were the spectacles that good? What if they were better?

  She followed at a safe distance, thought she lost him when she was overly cautious coming out of the Crossroads, but identified him again by his gait—she hoped. The master cloak gave her a huge advantage, though, even when she didn’t use it for invisibility. She started with it as a worn deep-blue cloak, folded it down on her shoulders and changed it to a green-and-black check pattern, and bound a scarf around her head quickly before she came up the stairs out of the basement, and then went with a muted brown to go with a wide-brimmed petasos she stole from a merchant’s stall before she got to the Lily’s Stem.

  She had to hurry when he got to the Chromeria, but she lost him in the great hall. She caught a glimpse of a man who might be him, wearing a slave’s garb and entering the servants’ stairs.

  Teia hesitated.

  This was where things got even more dangerous. If he were aware of her at all, this would be where he sprang his trap. If she went invisibly, the Old Man might notice her paryl. If she went visibly, any Chromeria slave or servant might stop her coming up their stairs—she wasn’t dressed as a slave, and sightseers and supplicants for the White often tried to jump the lines by doing that.

  The last options were for Teia to go as a slave and possibly be recognized, or go as a Blackguard and definitely be recog
nized.

  Would the staff know that a certain Blackguard was missing? What would Teia do if a Blackguard came down the stairs? The Blackguards often used the stairs for convenience or speed. After all, technically, they, too, were slaves.

  Cursing inwardly at the stupidity of it all—Teia should be the one secure here, and the Old Man afraid, not the other way around!—Teia wrapped herself in a paryl cloud and darted into the door. She was exhausted from all her drafting, and from the tension, but she couldn’t give up now.

  Her boiled-rubber-soled shoes were nearly silent as she jogged up the steps.

  Doors opened and doors closed, casting echoes down the great spiraling stairs where Kip and the Mighty had nearly died fighting last year. Too many openings and closings. The stairs were sometimes empty for several minutes, and at other times they were as busy as at the Lily’s Stem. To her horror, now seemed like one of the latter times.

  Teia poked her head out the first door she thought she might have heard, knowing it might be met with a sword.

  But there was nothing.

  She ran up another floor, threw the door open. A young slave woman setting down a clean bucket of water by her mop looked up, and seemed curious that she didn’t see anyone there.

  Next floor, nothing… nothing… nothing.

  He was here. The Old Man was here in the Prism’s Tower. He was close. But Teia hadn’t found him in time. She’d hesitated too long, been too careful.

  This had been her last chance to root out the Order of the Broken Eye without getting her friends killed. It had been her last chance to save her father.

  Teia’s last hope fizzled, sputtered, and went out.