by Brent Weeks
Teia drew in paryl, cupped loosely in her hand, drafted off center so it decayed rapidly back into its spectrum of light, but now focused in a beam. Relaxed her eyes and ducked her head so the hat’s brim shielded her eyes as much as possible. She had to do it quickly. There was no way she could put on spectacles—which only the wealthy could afford—and maintain her disguise, but if anyone saw her pupils, they’d likely shout.
The light cut through his garments, through his hair, though it wasn’t powerful enough from this distance to go through his heavy leather gloves or boots. She watched him as he went past.
Belt buckle, sword, coins tucked in a breast pocket. All these lit up, white in her vision. But no silver scrollwork document case.
If he had the documents on him, they were either tucked into his boots or gloves or lengthwise beneath his belt—or made of thin enough paper that the paryl went right through them. No matter what, she was darked.
She fell in behind him, following thirty or forty paces back. If he was delivering papers to the Blood Forest embassy, she had about fifteen minutes to make the grab. She knew Big Jasper well, but she didn’t know how well this spy knew it. Neighborhoods between the docks and the embassy district weren’t nearly as bad as those farther north.
The spy walked confidently, though he did check behind himself once in a while. He never looked at a map or asked for directions. So he knew the city.
Teia couldn’t follow him and close the distance while he was being this careful. Disguised as a skinny poor boy in a hat, she could blend in well, but the man was a spy. Surely he’d notice her before she could catch up and steal from him.
If he knew the city, and if he was heading directly to the embassy, there were two alleys between main thoroughfares that he would cut through at different spots.
It was a gamble, but it was the best Teia had.
The spy brushed his left glove, as if reassuring himself that something was still there. That was it. Luck!
Teia peeled off and turned left where two roads diverged. After half a block, she began jogging. It drew attention, but not too much. Apprentices often had to run when performing chores for their masters.
She circled several blocks, jogging fast. The crowds thinned out, and she turned down the street that should intercept the spy. Too late. He was already there, heading across the road, crossing in front of her. Teia cursed quietly, and doubled back.
One last chance. This time, she ran full out to make it to the last alley. She was small enough that she might still have looked like a boy playing. She tried not to let her panic show in her face. She’d only have one chance.
She turned down the cross street and made it to the alley entrance.
Heaving a few deep breaths and trying to calm her nerves and steady her hands, she ducked her head low so her face would be hidden and headed into the alley. He was at the far end, coming toward her. Her heart was pounding so hard it shook her whole frame. There was no one else in the alley. If she were quick, she could intercept him as he passed through a narrow spot. Perfect.
Teia kept her head tilted, hat down, shielding her eyes. There wouldn’t be a whole lot of grace in this one. She would do a bump and grab, and if he didn’t notice immediately, he probably would within a few seconds. There was no crowd here, no distractions. She’d just have to hope she was fast enough to get away. She was already plotting escape routes—but let that be. Pay attention. First thing’s the grab.
She stepped through the narrow spot just as the spy did. She pretended a stumble. He brought his hands up and pushed her away. She grabbed the notes, but it wasn’t clean. She tugged a bit of sleeve, too, and the spy turned as she yanked the letters free. Shit!
And then something happened too fast for her to follow. The shadow of that narrow spot in the alley came alive, detached itself from the very wall it had been part of, and imprisoned her arm.
It whiplashed her back toward the spy. Something warm splattered against her lips and neck. The spy raised his hands, panicked—his throat slashed open, his jugular fountaining blood all over Teia.
Teia pushed the spy away and he fell, gasping like a fish. The shadowed assassin put something into her hand. A bloody knife.
She recognized him by his size and stature and eyes, because he was completely covered otherwise, his cloak drawn tight over his head, the side of the hood hooked closed to make a mask over his face, only his eyes uncovered. Murder Sharp.
He released her, stepped back quickly, stepping over the spy dying at his feet as if there were nothing noteworthy in having murdered a man.
“You’re a murderer now,” he said. “Run, or you’re fucked.” His cloak shimmered, starting around his eyes, and in trails like smoke that raced in spirals down his body, light twinkled and then disappeared.
She heard the scrape of his boot in the alley, but there was nothing there to see. She tried to look in paryl, but she couldn’t control it. She was frozen. She looked at herself—covered in blood, bloody knife in her hand, dying man at her feet.
A sharp sailor’s whistle blew in the air, the three-tone call for help. Unmistakable for anything else. “Good luck,” the air said. She could hear Murder Sharp’s wide grin, even if she couldn’t see it.
Teia stood, paralyzed, for one moment more. She saw a watchman two hundred paces down the alley. He saw her, too, bloody blade in hand, standing over a dead man. She ran.
Chapter 18
Gavin hoped that the ship going in to port would give him a chance to escape. If not that, at least a chance to send a message. And if not that, he hoped that the sailors’ natural braggadocio would serve to get word to the Chromeria for him. But though Gunner might have been half crazy, he wasn’t stupid. After he’d taken the Ilytian galley, they’d headed directly to port. The Ilytian sailors who had survived the attack had been chained to their own oars, replacing the dead slaves, given fresh oars from the supplies on the Bitter Cob, and kept strictly away from the Cob’s crew.
Away from Gavin.
The Bitter Cob had dropped anchor a fair distance from whatever the nearest town was. The slaves thought it was Corrath Springs, though more than half the slaves were Angari and therefore strangers to the Cerulean Sea, so Gavin figured everyone was guessing, putting a name on a place to try to give themselves some illusion of control over it. The other galley, Rage of the Seas—a grandiose title, but the Ilytians didn’t have much use for modesty—had been manned by Gunner’s first mate and the third mate, who hated the first mate, and Leonus, who hated everyone.
Gavin thought it was a smart move. Men who hated each other were much less likely to collude. If the officers came back with wildly different stories of how much they got paid for the galley and cargo, you could ask Leonus. Not a foolproof design, but reasonably good, especially if the next time you sent different men.
The crew who’d stayed behind were unhappy about not getting a chance for shore leave, but Gunner silenced that in short order with a few beatings.
The mates and Leonus came back the next morning, having sold the Rage of the Seas and the slaves—and doubtless spent the night being entertained at a brothel, but that was a tax any wise captain was willing to pay. They hoisted anchor and headed out immediately. The only supplies the men had brought back were barrels of hardtack and barrels of brandy. The galley slaves all got a measure, with a double for those in the first six rows. Leonus shorted them all, though, setting aside enough for himself that he got thoroughly sick.
It was also thoroughly stupid. If he’d only shorted a few of them, or those in the back, he could have stolen the same amount of drink. Instead, he was uniting the slaves against him.
Once they’d been under way for a couple of hours, Gavin was chained, released from his oar, and bundled upstairs. He was taken to the poop, where Gunner was waiting.
Gavin was forced to kneel again, and his chains locked to a ring on deck. He didn’t fight, didn’t grimace.
“You’re a problem,” Gunner said.
He dismissed Leonus and the other sailor who’d brought Gavin up. He had his curious white gun-sword hoisted over his shoulders, and was hanging his hands off it like it was a yoke.
“My apologies,” Gavin said. In quick glances, he studied the blade again: white and black, seven lambent gems. If he’d been able to see colors, it probably would have been even more impressive.
“How long until they name your replacement?” Gunner asked.
“Men like you and me can’t be replaced, Gunner, only followed.”
A quick flash of a grin. But then, “Answer the question, Six.”
“Prisms and Prisms-elect are traditionally only named on Sun Day. If he or she dies before Sun Day, most of the duties are deferred, and the balancing is accomplished through manual means—that is, drafters around the world being told not to draft as much of one color, but more of another.”
“Good news at last,” Gunner said. Then he spat over the deck. “ ‘Traditionally’?”
“During wars, four times Prisms have been named early, with the final ceremonies put off until Sun Day.”
“So you could already be replaced?” Gunner said. “Good thing you’re good on an oar, I guess.”
Oh, Gunner was worried that if he didn’t ransom Gavin before another Prism was named, Gavin’s value would go down. Orholam’s sweet saggies, like Gavin was property. The thought clanged, dissonant, the vibrations shaking sand from surfaces that had been smooth, revealing rusty nails beneath the surface. It was one thing to be forced to row. Even to be beaten was hard and infuriating, but nothing more than Gavin had dealt with in training. Sore muscles? He’d had those for five hundred days straight as he’d designed the skimmer. He’d had men and women try to kill him, he’d been hated and feared everywhere he went. But to be a slave?
No, this was an unpleasant land he was visiting. It wasn’t his new home. Good on an oar? He would escape or be rescued, there was no question of it. He wasn’t a rower; he was simply rowing for a time.
Gavin owned slaves. When he saw stray looks on their faces, fear or despair or disgust, he judged whether it was an assassination attempt—and if it wasn’t, he dismissed it. Dismissed them. Because they were beneath his notice.
The only slave he’d treated like she was human was Marissia. He’d been good to her, at least. More than good. He’d been an excellent owner to the slave closest to himself. That had to count for something.
“You’re certain your father doesn’t want you back?” Gunner asked.
“You saw where that sword was, didn’t you?” Gavin asked. He meant when Gunner had fished him out of the water. He didn’t remember it himself, but he’d been told he’d been impaled on the damn thing. “My father put it there.”
That was true, as far as it went. Gavin had taken the dagger into his own chest when he saw it was him or Kip. An odd touch of mad heroics. And now Kip was drowned. Which showed all the good heroics do.
“What do you want?” Gavin asked.
Gunner spread his arms, soaking up the sun. His jacket parted over his sinewy bare chest, and he held the ivory and ebony musket-sword easily. “Gunner wants a legend,” he said.
“You’ve got two. The Sea Demon Slayer? You’ve been a legend since you were six and ten. And you captured me, a legend if there ever was one.”
“If you says so yourself,” Gunner said, grinning.
“I figgered Gunner wouldn’t be one for false modesty,” Gavin shot back.
Gunner paused. “Indeed, no.” He got pensive. Finally, he gestured to his ship, his crew, even his miraculous sword. “It ain’t enough. You understand? Of all of ’em, you understand, don’t you? I was a boy when I did that other. That can’t be the pineapple of my life, can it?”
Gavin didn’t grin at the malapropism. Gunner wouldn’t take even a hint of well-meant mockery, not now.
“It was half luck,” Gunner said. He shook his head. “A man’s more than one act, ain’t he?” But he didn’t wait for Gavin to answer. He pointed to the horizon with grim amusement. “There, you see it?”
Gavin couldn’t see it.
Gunner grunted, looking at Gavin’s chains, but decided to keep him in them. “We’re being followed by a galley. Belongs to one Mongalt Shales. He’s sworn vengeance on me. Two years ago, I was gunner for the famous Captain Giles Tanner. You know him?”
Gavin had to shake his head.
Gunner grunted, like it was a loss, but a digression too far to fill Gavin in. “Pirate, ’course. We found a galley and gave chase, and I made a shot from the long tom. Didn’t just blow the first mate off the wheel—I blew off the wheel. From three hundred paces. Bit of luck to that shot, I admit. Without her bein’ able to turn, fight was over like that. No one else even died.”
“The mate blown off the wheel was Shales’s kin?” Gavin guessed.
“Sister. He’s been following me since. Found me at a bunkhouse in Wiwurgh. Started a fight. I busted out half his teeth. Found me at a whorehouse in Smussato. Challenged me to a duel. I suggested pistols. He said swords. I left him with a dozen cuts and a broken hand. Found me at a tavern in Odess. Challenged me to a duel again. I stickulated that we fire pistols from forty paces. He missed. I shot him in the groin. Winged him, but never heard if I unmanned him or not. He lived, so it can’t have been bad, but I saw blood. Thought that would put him off finally.”
You thought castrating a man would stop his quest for vengeance?
“He follows me now. I keep enough distance to taunt him. To let him think he’ll catch me, if he just gets the wind right, or if I make one mistake. Not sure how he motivates his crew. Imagine they’ll mutiny someday.”
“So you’re letting a lethal problem fester because… why? Because you’re bored?” That Gunner hadn’t killed his pursuer either said Gunner was a better man than Gavin had thought, or a far, far worse one.
“Gunner likes that word. What’s that mean?”
Which… oh, fester. “Get worse. Like a wound that gets gangrene or leaks pus.”
“Knew it was a good one. You’re a smart man, Prism. Festure.”
“Fester,” Gavin said before he could stop himself.
Murder passed across Gunner’s face in half a second, then departed. “Fester,” he said carefully. “What would your father do if I sent him your eyes?”
Gavin suppressed a quick stab of revulsion and fear. “That depends.”
“Pray tell.”
“He would doubtless make some public expression of grief. That would be a mummer’s show I should be sorry to miss. He’ll come after you regardless, but you tell me, are my eyes still prismatic?”
Gunner’s fist came out of nowhere, crushing the side of Gavin’s face. Unable to defend himself in his chains, on his knees, Gavin crashed heavily to the deck. He heard a mechanical sound and looked up, blood filling his mouth, to see Gunner had the musket-sword loaded, cocked, and pointed at Gavin’s head.
“You mock me?” Gunner asked.
What? “My eyes,” Gavin said. “Do they look like prisms? Do they reflect light anymore?”
“No, plain blue,” Gunner said, staring down the barrel. “Ah, prismic. Right. ’Pologies.” He hoisted up the gun. “Prismic?”
“That’s right,” Gavin said.
“Prismic?”
“Prismatic,” Gavin admitted.
“Prismatic. That’s right. Your eyes did used to be all prismatic. If Gunner popped ’em and sent ’em to Papa, he’d think that I don’t have his boy after all. Looks like you keeps your peepers. ’Course, I could pop one out. Just because.”
Karris, could you please come and save my ass? While there’s ass left to save, please? “You know, Gunner, I like you a lot. But you frighten me.”
Gunner smiled big, and the danger passed. He looked out at the sea again.
Gavin thought to speak, then thought better of it. Gunner was pensive. Let him think.
“A great musket and an impossible task,” he said after a long minute.
“Hmm
?”
“That’s what I want. That’s all.” He looked at the musket-sword he’d pulled from Gavin’s side, somehow without killing him. “I used to want to make the perfect musket. This destroyed that for me. I can never make one this good. I used to want to shoot the Everdark Gates. This ship has destroyed that for me. It’s all been done.” He stomped on the deck. “Gunner was born too late. The last impossible task in this world, he accomplished in his youth.”
He sank into himself, the bright sun no longer penetrating his darkness.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Gavin said. “There are a dozen challenges worthy—”
The butt of the musket flashed out, slamming into Gavin’s stomach and knocking his wind away.
“Do not think to placard me, Guile. I’m no child to be twisted round your twosies. Take him below!” he roared. “Now! Before Gunner blows off the head of our prize!”
Chapter 19
Even as Teia’s feet beat the paving stones, her mind locked up. She was like an animal. She got to a narrow intersection in the alley, and realized she had the bloody knife still in her hands. She skidded to a stop, turned, and flung the knife down the alley, then turned and went the other direction. The ringing of the steel on the stones felt like another alarum bell. She scrubbed her face with a sleeve. It came away bloody.
She was covered in blood. Dear Orholam save her. Teia sprinted down the block, slowed to a walk at the corner, entered the main street, and moved toward the first shop. It was a wool carders’ and weavers’ store, broad shutters open, some of their wares displayed on the street. Seeing an old, toothless woman at the counter inside, Teia squatted down between a rack of woven goat wool ghotras and the wall outside. If the woman came out, the opening door would shield Teia from her.
There was only long enough to wonder if she’d made a terrible decision; then the whistles started. Teia heard men running, not ten paces away. The watchmen, blowing their whistles, high and angry. Running toward the murder, though, not away from it. Trying to figure out what had happened, right now, not yet trying to catch who’d done it.