The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  It felt like Kip had been kicked by a horse. But blubber bounces back. “Get out of here,” Kip said. “You bug me. Ha. Get it? You’re an insect?”

  “You can die easy now or you can die over the course of ten thousand agonizing years. Last chance.” Stomping on Kip’s head with each word for emphasis, he said, “Where. Is. My. Cloak?”

  That was the magic of the master cloak. Even the immortals couldn’t see it. No wonder Abaddon was a bit put out that Kip had taken it.

  “I have a better question,” Kip said, nose streaming blood. “Keep firing as fast as you can. It reloads itself.”

  “Enough of this,” Abaddon said. “As fast as—what?”

  “A better question than ‘Where is my cloak?’” Kip said quickly, “would be ‘Where is my… pistol?’”

  Abaddon reached for his holster to draw his revolving-chambered pistol, Comfort. It wasn’t there to be found.

  Teia was fast. She’d always been fast.

  A hole appeared through the middle of Abaddon’s left eye as a gush of gases and smoke jumped out of the empty air to Kip’s left. Only the pistol’s barrel protruded from the invisible master cloak. One report followed on another. Five shots. Ten shots. Fifteen. Twenty, as fast as she could fire them, perforating the immortal relentlessly.

  Teia said nothing. She wasn’t the kind of assassin to give a lecture to announce her presence.

  She also wasn’t usually the kind to miss with half of her shots, but then Kip saw why as she dislodged the master cloak and her head became visible: she was firing blind. She wore a scarf around her eyes and had also ducked her head into the crook of her elbow to shield her light-sensitive eyes from the muzzle flash of the pistol every time she pulled the trigger, only taking a quick, unsteady peek every few shots until Abaddon collapsed, hemorrhaging blood everywhere.

  With a word to her, Kip took the pistol from her hand, then stood over the immortal, whose chest and arms were drenched with several shades of impossibly vivid green and black and red blood, the colors already fading in Kip’s sight as the immortal’s life faded and their realms separated once more.

  “I know I can’t kill you without the Blinding Knife,” Kip said. “But I can banish you, can’t I?”

  He shot Abaddon in his nasty insectoid head. Twelve times. Then his chest a few more. Then the joints of his flailing limbs. Then his stomach—who knew where this immortal kept his heart? No point taking any chances. “Get… out… of my world!”

  Kip kept firing until the color faded and the immortal’s blood boiled, turned to smoke, and blew away with an ungodly stench. The rest of its flesh followed. In moments, nothing was left but Abaddon’s clothing.

  “Dammit, Teia. Took your time, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Is that a thank-you?” she asked. She was sitting with her head against her knees. “When’d you see me coming?”

  “I didn’t. But I knew you wouldn’t sit out a whole battle,” he said. “We’d never let you live that down.”

  She gestured to the chain-spear still wrapped around her waist. “Faced an immortal, and I forgot to use your gift. Sorry.” She flashed a wan smile. “I guess it’s aptly…” She trailed off. “I’m not feeling so good, Kip.” She twitched. Her skin blanched deathly pale.

  He barely caught her before she collapsed.

  “It’s gonna be all right. We’ll take care of you, Teia,” he said, his chest tightening.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  Chapter 145

  “Form up,” Big Leo ordered. “One last time.”

  They were all standing looking out toward the pirate ships anyway.

  “Might as well make an easy target for ’em, huh?” Winsen said.

  “Running’s still an option,” Ben-hadad said. “They might not get us all.”

  “Says the man with bouncy legs,” Winsen said, but he took his place in the formation.

  “I tried so hard to bribe them,” Karris said, resigned. “They shaved my messengers bald and had them beaten. Never even listened to the offers. Offers that would have put us in debt for a hundred years, by the way.”

  Dazen said, “This is personal. I sank Pash Vecchio’s great ship, his pride and joy.” In the time it had taken them to safely get back down from the White King’s high platform, the pirate king’s fleet had pulled within range, with a great ship the twin of the Gargantua coming to point-blank. “I guess when you make enough enemies, it’s gotta catch up with you sooner or later.”

  Karris sighed, then straightened her back to stand tall. She looked around at all of them as if to lock them in her mind’s eye now. “Where’s Grinwoody?” she asked.

  “Grinwoody?” Dazen asked.

  “Yeah, he fought with us all night,” Karris said. “Saved me a time or two.”

  “Good fighter for an old guy,” Big Leo said.

  “He what?” Dazen asked.

  “Haven’t seen him,” Big Leo said. “Not since we came out here. Maybe he fell behind?”

  No one else had seen him, either, and no one had as much interest as Dazen did in pursuing the inquiry, as they were staring out at hundreds and hundreds of pirates bearing down on them.

  “Pirate king’s a mercenary, right?” Ben-hadad said. “So… surely he’s gonna want to switch sides again now that the White King’s dead? Right?”

  “Ben, Ben, Ben,” Winsen said as if he were a child. “The leadership of one side is dead, and he’s got the leaders of the other side staring down the barrels of a thousand guns. You really think—”

  “Not a thousand,” Ferkudi interrupted. “Don’t exaggerate! Twelve port pieces, twenty hail shots, two top pieces, thirty breech-loading swivel guns, six slings, six fowlers, and we don’t have to worry about the culverins and demiculverins and sakers—they’re probably not gonna waste long-range guns when we’re this close, right? And less than half the total could be pointed our direction at once since they can’t broadside us with both sides simultaneously—though with the muskets and pistols all those pirates are pointing… And then there’s the other ships—huh. Yeah, maybe a thousand guns, after all. Never mind.”

  Winsen went on as if Ferkudi hadn’t spoken. “Pash Vecchio’s a vulture. What do you think he’s gonna do?”

  “Hold us for ransom?” Ben-hadad said hopefully.

  “A vulture with a grudge,” Dazen said as the other ships of Vecchio’s fleet continued to fan out. He was reminded how slow naval combat could be before its sudden sharp end. “It’s a big mistake to think people will always act according to their best interests rather than according to your worst. How’s the light for you all?”

  “Not enough to do anything against that many guns,” Big Leo said.

  “Why haven’t they fired yet?” Karris asked.

  “We’ll get mockery first, I think,” Dazen said. “Pash will want to make sure I know who’s killing me.”

  “Maybe he’ll only kill you,” Winsen said, switching places in line to be farther away from Dazen.

  A big man stepped out into view on the deck, a big man in ruffles and brocade and more jewels than a beach has sand. He wore a waistcoat under his coat, but no tunic, showing dark-olive skin under many gold chains. He looked something like a huge, obscenely rich version of Gunner.

  “And there he is,” Dazen said. “Sometimes I hate being right.”

  “Huh, where’d you pick up that keen understanding of what a super-arrogant guy will do?” Winsen asked.

  “Win, shut it,” Big Leo said.

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Dying makes me grumpy, sir.”

  “Gavin Guile!” the pirate boomed between ranks and ranks of men with muskets all pointed at Dazen. Vecchio was broad and happy and intense and spoke in the tone of a man who wouldn’t be ignored. The man was also holding two exquisite flintlock pistols, entirely plated in gold.

  “Pash Vecchio? Your Majesty,” Dazen said.

  “I see my reputation precedes me!” Vecchio said. “Or did you recognize the s
hip?”

  Even as he smiled, Dazen swore under his breath.

  “Do you know? Someone sank its twin!” Pash Vecchio said. He spun his gold pistols around his fingers, not precisely pointing them at Dazen and not precisely not. “All hands on deck, too. Terrible loss.”

  “Terrible loss,” Dazen agreed, pained. Please, let this not be out of the frying pan, into another frying pan closer to the fire.

  “There’s a battle on, Guile. And is that High Lady Guile with you there? Who would believe my luck? You’re even more lovely than I’d heard. And, given the soot and blood you’re covered with, as formidable too.”

  “Thank you?” Karris said.

  “Why don’t you both hop aboard my newest little treasure?”

  ‘Treasure.’ That didn’t bode well. Not that there was any option to disobey. The ship had hundreds of well-armed pirates on it, in addition to the sailors. Imprisonment was better than death, but Dazen had had quite enough of imprisonment.

  He gritted his teeth and refrained from doing anything stupid, climbing up the extra-long gangplank to get onto the ship.

  The Blackguards and the Mighty lined up on the deck with Dazen. No one had moved to disarm them without the Pash’s order, but no one had stopped aiming their muskets at them, either.

  “Here’s the thing, Lord Guile,” Pash Vecchio continued, “O sinker of a ship I adored, a ship that cost me a hundred million danars—”

  “That much?” Dazen said. “You should really talk to the shipwright about that. The powder magazine would be considerably more secure if—”

  “Silence!” Pash Vecchio said. He licked his lips. “We talked. It was rather… more direct than peregrinational.”

  Pirates. Did they all try to impress with their verbal gymnastics, or was that an Ilytian trait?

  But Pash continued, “What I was trying to say—and there’s a battle waiting here, so let’s not drag this out—is that you, Gavin Guile—”

  “—Dazen Guile—”

  “—you sank a ship I loved. I was very, very… very, very, very perturbed about that. Disturbed even. Mad even. Mad. But it turns out there’s one thing I love more than my flagship. And you managed to find it.”

  Oh, nine hells. Seriously? What did I do now?

  “My daughter. Behold, the pirate queen!”

  A girl jumped out of the door to the captain’s cabin. Dazen recognized her. Orholam’s balls. It was his mother’s room slave.

  “High Lord Guile,” Fiammetta said. She bowed instead of curtsying, as she was wearing short trousers, a vest, and somewhat fewer gold chains than her father. She had a beatific smile, and had grown out her bright hair in curls. She was either adopted, or took quite a lot after her mother.

  This was the slave girl he’d sent home, practically on a whim, guarded by the Cloven Shield mercenary band. She hadn’t said she was even from Ilyta; she’d said she was from Wiwurgh, in Paria.

  But of course she had.

  Because what do you do if you’re the intelligent daughter of an incredibly wealthy pirate king? You pretend that you’re just a lowly slave unless things get really terrible, because you know he’s going to save you and you’d like him to be able to ransom you cheaply, and you don’t want to stir up his enemies who might kill or buy you to get back at him.

  “Dazen?” Karris asked.

  “My mother’s former room slave, whom she’d ordered freed… but my father hadn’t quite gotten around to freeing yet,” Dazen said.

  “Nor had any plans to,” Fiammetta said.

  “You never mentioned that,” Karris said.

  “Turns out,” Fiammetta said, “Gavin Guile did those kinds of things quite frequently. Swooped in, saved people, left. Protecting his people, risking his life as if that was just what he did. There must be a hundred villages that have stories of the Prism himself coming and saving them from a rampaging wight, or bandits, or a rapacious local governor. He never cared what it would cost to make things right. And only Gavin Guile could track down an illegal slave ship, board it alone rather than sink it from afar, and free everyone aboard with no loss of life. He ended the Blood Wars. He saved an entire swath of Atash when the Blue-Eyed Demons decided they wanted their own kingdom to despoil and he put them down.”

  “Wait,” Karris said, “that was you? We thought they’d turned on each other.”

  Dazen shrugged apologetically.

  “You went alone?” she asked, and he wasn’t sure if her outrage was that of a wife or of a Blackguard.

  “The way I hear it,” Fiammetta said, “he couldn’t help himself. Traveled the empire and fixed problems wherever he went. Ships saved from storms. Cures brought from afar. The ruthless brought to justice. Practically invisible, yet bringing light wherever he went. People love a man like that. People follow a man like that.”

  “They did,” Dazen said. Once. He tried to say it without bitterness. For good and ill, a Guile might never forget what he’d done, but other people certainly did.

  “They do still,” a woman’s voice said from the recesses of the captain’s cabin. “I traveled all over the Seven Satrapies, and everywhere I went, they told me tales of their Gavin Guile, who came and stood for them, who fought for them.”

  Dazen’s knees almost went out from under him, and he heard Karris gasp as she recognized the voice.

  “Everywhere,” Marissia said, “they love him, and when I asked them if they’d fight for Gavin Guile in his hour of need, they ran to answer the call.”

  Dazen couldn’t speak. He couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe his eyes as Marissia strode out of the gloom.

  Dazen crushed her in a hug, and Karris—gracious Karris!—joined him immediately.

  He choked out, “I thought you were dead. I thought that was on me, too.”

  Fiammetta, who had apparently become a great friend of Marissia’s, couldn’t help herself. She crashed into the hug, too.

  “But how? How?” Gavin asked.

  Marissia said, “Your father’s an asshole, but he doesn’t always murder people when he can avoid it. He exiled me to one of those little islands he owns. I escaped.”

  “But how did you—?”

  “Escape? Gavin Guile,” Marissia said in a reproving tone, “I am not a woman without resources.”

  “I—”

  “Enough!” Marissia said. She was radiant, smiling fiercely despite the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Come see!”

  She pulled him out onto the forecastle, where she raised one of his arms, and the pirate queen Fiammetta came to his other side and raised the other. Thousands of voices roared at seeing him, not just those sailors on the great ship but the sailors on all the others around them.

  Pash Vecchio’s fleet had to make up more than a third of the White King’s entire armada. And it was shifting into a formation that didn’t make much sense if they were preparing to invade the Jaspers.

  Marissia said, “Every one of these thousands you see here: every gunner, soldier, and sailor has told me some variation of the same thing: ‘When I needed help most, Gavin Guile stood for me. How could I not stand for him now?’”

  Dazen was speechless. Proud as he was, he’d never understood what people meant when they said they were humbled by a gift.

  He understood now.

  “This isn’t Pash Vecchio’s fleet, Gavin Guile,” Marissia said. “It’s yours.”

  Pash Vecchio cleared his throat awkwardly. “I was against all this, but… but you should really have a daughter. Then you’ll understand.” He glowered. “Come on, Orholam with the squirts, people, this is the part where we betray the pagans and destroy their armada. Isn’t anyone going to give the order?”

  “What order?” Dazen started to ask. Was this why the whole pirate fleet was coming to bear not on Big Jasper but on the White King’s battered armada, into which they’d already driven a wedge?

  O my sweet Orho—

  “Fia?” Pash Vecchio said, unlimbering a massive curving sword. H
e flicked it spinning into the air.

  Fiammetta jumped up to a gunwale and snatched it out of the air. She shouted, “Who stands with Gavin Guile?”

  Pash Vecchio launched a signal flare even as she brought the blade down with an impressive flourish.

  The people roared, and the thunder of many cannons rose like a chorus of a thousand voices, shouting:

  “I stand, I stand, I stand with Gavin Guile.”

  Chapter 146

  The goddess once known as Aliviana Danavis watched the battle play out from atop the Prism’s Tower as the sun rose. She’d tended to her wounds throughout the night, pausing when her flesh required it and simply watching as Andross Guile directed astonishing quantities of light with deft control. She was glad, then, that he’d chosen to become an old man rather than a god.

  The fall had not only nearly killed her, it had shaken her. More importantly, it had shaken Ferrilux’s hold on her. The immortal was more cunning than she’d given him credit for, and if not for being hurried by this battle, he might have taken her over by degrees.

  It was going to be a very long war between them.

  She limped to the edge of the tower. Not everyone realized it yet, but the battle had already been decided. The pirate fleet was fresh and had better position, and the Blood Robes’ leadership was in utter disarray, some ships counterattacking and colliding with other ships fleeing, contradictory orders, confusion—it had all the elements of an impending slaughter.

  Nor was the fleet the only surprise: that, the hosts and their immortals might have destroyed. The dawn had brought sea demons, and they were devouring the bane from beneath. The fresh seed crystals with which the Blood Robes had planned to renew any bane they lost simply winked out of Liv’s perception, ingested into those great cruciform mouths and digested by their great cetacean gullets.

  Interesting. The sea demons were a conundrum she hadn’t studied yet. She would have to, in the coming centuries.

  She heard the clank of the mirror-array frame’s metal on metal as it came to a rest. Then Andross Guile began unstrapping himself. He looked weary, and angry.

  “What are You playing at?” he demanded. He wasn’t looking at Liv. He was looking skyward. “Orholam! That can’t be it. This was to be my last and greatest game. This was to be everything!”