by Brent Weeks
“Grinwoody!” the old man barked.
The slave came in and hung something on a hook above Kip’s head. He left wordlessly.
“Lantern,” Andross Guile said.
Lantern? But it wasn’t on. Was Kip supposed to light it? Wouldn’t that defeat the whole point of sitting in a darkened room with blackout curtains over every window and door? Besides, Kip didn’t have so much as a flint.
Was it a drafting test to see if Kip could—
Moron. It’s a superviolet lantern.
Kip tightened his pupils, and the room jumped into alien, violet, superfine relief. It was a larger room than he’d thought. Portraits of the Guiles’ ancestors hung on every wall. Viewed solely in superviolet light, the portraits were lifeless, monochrome. Kip could distinguish the ridges and bumps from the brushstrokes, but seeing the faces made thereby was more difficult. There was an enormous four-poster bed barely visible through the doors in a second chamber, and of course the heavy velvet curtains everywhere. Ivory and marble sculptures sat on the mantel, on the harpsichord. Kip couldn’t pick a single style from all the art, but it all seemed very, very fine.
There were a number of chairs, divans, and tables. A clock with spinning gears and a swinging pendulum of the kind Kip had only heard of.
Last, Kip looked at the man in front of him, expecting some horror. Despite the darkness, Andross Guile wore enormous dark spectacles. He’d been a big man, before age robbed him. His shoulders were still broad, but skinny. His hair, flat, desaturated violet in the lantern light, must be silvery gray, almost white. It was sparse, disheveled—befitting a man who lived without mirrors. His skin, too, was washed out, loose. Naturally darker than Gavin’s, but bleached by age. His nose straight, deep wrinkles. There was an old scar along his neck up onto his jawline.
He had been a handsome man. Clearly a Guile.
“You play Nine Kings?” Andross Guile asked.
“My mother never had that kind of money,” Kip said. It was a card game. The cards themselves were often worth their weight in gold.
“But you know how to play.”
“I’ve watched others.”
“The deck lies before you,” Andross Guile said. “Let it not be said I’m not fair: the first game will have no stakes.”
“It will not be said,” Kip said. He picked up his deck, and was hit with another reminder of how different of a world he’d stepped into. Depending on the seriousness of the players, there were many different variants of Nine Kings. There were more than seven hundred cards, from which each player constructed his own deck. In villages like Rekton, soldiers passing through might have a deck built by a small-town artist. The main requirement there was that the cards should have no markings on the back side by which players could cheat and draw the card of their choice. Nobles would play with cards made by artists and drafters together at one of the six branches of the Card Guild. Those cards were beautifully drawn and lacquered with blue luxin, guaranteeing every one was uniform.
These weren’t those cards. Each card was electrum—a mixture of gold and silver. Parian cuneiform numbers denoted each strength and ability, and each was adorned with masterful art and signed. Some were inlaid with tiny jewels. All were sealed with perfect crystalline yellow luxin. Jeweled knucklebones and ivory counters and stained glass sand clocks completed the set.
Kip tried to ignore the treasure in his hands and awkwardly shuffled the cards.
“How’d you cripple yourself?” Andross Guile asked. He was expertly shuffling his own cards.
Kip was surprised the old man asked. “I got robbed. I fought, and someone pushed me into a fire. I caught myself with this.” Kip held up his hand, then realized he was holding up his hand to a blind man. “Um, my hand. The wood was still hot.”
“ ‘Still hot’?”
“Oh, I drafted the fire when I fought them.”
Andross Guile mmed that.
They played, and Kip lost spectacularly, barely even recalling the rules. He could hardly decipher the Parian numbers because he’d only just learned them from seeing the Blackguard scrubs stand in order. Andross, on the other hand, played blind. His cards had small bumps and ridges on the face that must have been code to tell him what the card was. It wasn’t cheating, and it wasn’t any advantage, but it told Kip that the makers of the cards were making them specifically with Andross Guile in mind.
No wonder Kip hadn’t done any damage at all to Andross. The man was serious about his game.
The old man was expressionless, though. “Another. This time, there are stakes.”
“What are they?” Kip asked.
“High,” the old man said.
“I don’t have any money,” Kip said.
“I know what you have.”
Kip thought instantly of the dagger. Chose to ignore it. Chose to answer as if it were obvious that he had nothing at all. “Then what are we playing for?”
“You’ll find out when we finish. Play to win.”
Kip took a deep breath and played better the second time, but still got massacred. When his last knucklebone turned over to zero, Andross Guile sat back and folded his hands over his little paunch.
“Today, you sat with a small group of young people who call themselves the Rejects. Among them was a girl named Tiziri. It was observed that you made no particular connection with her.”
Kip remembered her. She was the homely girl at the table. Big smile, overweight, birthmark across her face. “What are you going to do?” Kip asked.
“Her parents sold six of their fifteen cattle to pay for her passage to the Chromeria. She’s going home tomorrow. Because of you.”
“What? Why? That doesn’t make any sense. That’s not fair!”
“You lost,” Andross Guile said. “We’ll play again. Next time the stakes will be higher.”
Chapter 30
“And you,” the Third Eye said, turning to Karris, “The Wife. You’re not right either.”
“Excuse me?” Karris said.
Gavin felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach, so it was nice to see Karris equally stunned.
But the Third Eye looked genuinely confused. “What are you here for, Prism?”
“I have fifty thousand refugees in need of a home. If I put them anywhere else, they’ll either be held hostage to the politics of satrapies, or massacred outright by the Color Prince.”
“You plan to put them here?”
“You’re the Seer.”
“You’ll destroy the community we’ve built here,” she said.
“You built a community to serve Orholam. Serve him by saving his people.”
“You don’t even know what you’re destroying,” she said.
“Nor is it in me to care overmuch. When the emperor sends a ship to Paria, he doesn’t concern himself with the comfort of the rats in the hold. If you want to serve Orholam, start putting together food. ‘Faith without deeds is dust,’ is it not? Fifty thousand starving people are going to arrive in three days.”
The men surrounding Gavin and Karris bristled. He shouldn’t have said it, but the sun was up and he needed every minute of daylight to finish the harbor before the fleet arrived. They would most likely have run out of food today. If he didn’t clear the coral and make a safe port, the ships would run aground, the men and women and children die.
“Are you a man or a god, Gavin Guile?” the Third Eye asked.
“I’m busy,” Gavin said. “Join me or get out of the way, because I’m going to do what I will, and if you oppose me, I’ll do what I must.”
“I don’t think I like you very much, Gavin Guile.”
“In another time, I think you would. Now pardon me, but I’ve a harbor to build.”
“Dinner,” the Third Eye said. “After the sun has set, of course. Join me for dinner. You’ve given me much to think about, and I would like to return the favor. Unless dining with a rat is beneath you?” She lifted a challenging, cool eyebrow.
A very palpabl
e hit. “I would be… delighted,” Gavin said.
He walked down the beach, drawing in light. He stripped off his tunic. It wasn’t so warm yet that it was necessary, but he wanted the Third Eye and her men to see the waves of color flooding through his skin as he walked away. Yellow first, making his body glow golden. He threw a spout of yellow up into the air, and had it formed into a skimmer by the time it hit the waves.
Karris stepped onto the skimmer with him. “Not sure why you always put yourself in a position where you have to turn your back on armed men,” she said.
“All the world is armed,” Gavin said. “I’ve got to have my back to half of it.”
She grunted. “Which means I walk backwards a lot.”
He looked over at her. She was smirking.
“You’re not mad at me?” he said. He thought he could have handled things better.
“You’re the Prism,” she said, making a gesture as she said “the Prism,” as if the words themselves sparkled. “How can I be mad at the Prism?”
He laughed. He spent his whole life with women, and he still didn’t understand them. “No, really,” he said.
She joined him on the oars. “I don’t know what your ultimate objective is with Tyrea’s refugees. I’m sure you have some endgame in mind. But I don’t care. You really are doing this to save people who right now don’t have anything to give you in return. People who are terribly inconvenient. People you could ignore. You’re not ignoring them. That’s—that’s a good thing. I don’t need to take that away from you.”
So there’s something in you that wants to take it away from me, though. “Thank you,” Gavin said. He meant it, but his heart ached, too.
One year. Maybe it’s a good thing I’ve only got one year left. I don’t think I could take this for another five.
They worked, and gradually the pain faded. Gavin drafted the great posts that would support the seawalls. There was more blasting to clear the sea floor and dig deep enough to give the posts a solid foundation, but it was mostly brute drafting. Layers of yellow for strength and green for flexibility. He would have loved to use blue, but he thought this would work.
By night, they’d finished all the posts. Tomorrow, the seawalls. The next day finishing touches and double-checking that everything was working the way he’d intended. Then he could get the hell out of here.
They rowed to shore after sunset. Gavin was thinking that after today’s labors, he should probably bathe before meeting for dinner with the Seer.
“Are you going to bed her?” Karris asked.
Gavin coughed. “What?”
“Is that a ‘yes,’ or a ‘yes if the opportunity presents itself’?”
Gavin flushed, but had no words.
Karris turned away first, though. The muscles in her jaw jumped, relaxed. “I’m sorry, Lord Prism. Inappropriate question. I apologize.”
Well, that takes that off the table.
I can’t bed you, but I sure as hell better not bed anyone else, huh? Perfect.
The Third Eye greeted him at the beach, her walk an aristeia of corporeal grace, sensuous, sinuous, suggestive without seeming practiced. Standing, she was striking. In motion, she was a woman for whom the world reveled that Orholam had given bodies to his creation, that he had given light that man might see beauty. She was smiling, lips full and red and inviting, eyes bright and large. She was made up exquisitely and wearing a white gown so thin that he could see the dark circles of her nipples through it.
Just. Fucking. Perfect.
Chapter 31
Kip went back to the barracks dismayed. He didn’t know what to do. If he told the Rejects that he was responsible for getting Tiziri sent home, they might turn on him, afraid that they would be next. And it was a rational fear, too.
What else could higher stakes next time mean? Kip had no money. All that could mean was that Andross would send home someone closer to Kip—or do something even worse.
The barracks was empty, though. Evidently the other students weren’t back from practicum yet. Kip walked toward his own pallet at the back, double-checking that no one else was present. Four down from his own, he threw open the chest at the foot of one of the empty beds. He dug under the blankets.
He heaved a deep sigh. The dagger was still there.
Covering it back up, he closed the box carefully, making sure nothing looked different than it had before. Then he went to bed.
He slept, dreamlessly for once. He woke amid excitement the next morning. Students were chattering with each other, making no attempt to be quiet for those who were still in bed—though Kip realized as he sat up that he was the only one still in bed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, voice scratchy from his long sleep.
“It’s Sponsor Day,” a boy said a few beds down. “No lectures or practicum today. We all meet with our sponsors.”
Kip shuffled to the communal bathroom and washed, gargled with salt water, and ran a comb through his hair a few times until it had something approximating order.
He walked downstairs alone and went to the dining hall. It was still serving food—much finer food than normal, he noticed—but there were few students. Those who were present were sitting with adults. One or two of the adults might have been older siblings, or parents.
It felt like a fist in the middle of his chest. Kip stood with his tray, looking for a place. It didn’t matter where he sat, he was going to be alone. Mother dead. Grandfather disavowed him. Father gone, as he’d been gone Kip’s whole life.
He sat, alone. Ate, alone. He forced himself not to hurry, some part of him not quite enjoying the pain, but reveling in it nonetheless.
These are the hammerfalls that shape a man. And he accepted the blows. So be it.
He finished and went to the library. The librarian, a surprisingly attractive woman, perhaps a weak yellow from her eyes, said, “I’m afraid all our private meeting rooms have been taken by sponsors already, young man.”
“I don’t need a room. I need books. On strategies for Nine Kings.”
“Ah.” Her face lit up. “I think we can help you.”
Rea Siluz was the fourth undersecretary. Usually worked the late shifts. Before Kip would be allowed to even view the books, he had to sign a contract swearing not to bring fire or to draft red luxin in the library. That done, she seated him at a desk on the shade side of the library, though of course there was plenty of artificial light from yellow lanterns throughout the space. Then she brought him half a dozen books.
“You play much?” Rea asked.
“Only twice. Lost both times, badly.”
She laughed quietly. Her dark hair, tightly curled, was massed in a huge, careful halo around her head, setting off a narrow face, full lips. “Most people lose the first twenty times they play.”
Ugh. “That’s not an option for me,” Kip said. “Where should I start?”
“Read these two first, and then study this one. This one has all the cards copied out, so you can refer to it when you don’t understand. The sooner you memorize them, the better you’ll be.”
Oh, boy. Kip settled in.
He read for twelve hours. When he went to the toilet once, as he was coming back, he saw a man hovering over his table, writing down the titles of the books piled there. He saw Kip coming and disappeared. Kip thought briefly of chasing him, but realized that he didn’t know what he would do if he caught the man.
Great, so they’re spying on what I read. Kip didn’t know who “they” were, but he figured it didn’t matter too much.
When he got up to get a late dinner, he went to Rea’s desk. “Can I come back after I eat?”
“You haven’t eaten yet?” She looked tired from working two shifts.
“No, but I’m starving now.”
“I’m sorry, then, but the library is closing in a few minutes.”
Kip looked at the students, who seemed to be giving no indication of leaving anytime soon, and gestured helplessly.
&nb
sp; “Those are third- and fourth-years, Kip. Higher years and Blackguard trainees get to study whenever and wherever they want. With so many other duties, some of them don’t even get here until midnight. First-years aren’t trusted that much. You can only be here when librarians are.”
So Kip studied for a few more minutes. When he finally left to go to bed, he was stopped in the hall by Grinwoody. The man grinned wolfishly at him.
Kip hadn’t learned enough. There was no way he could win.
Andross Guile’s chambers were exactly like before, and when Kip sat, there was a superviolet lantern and a deck of cards. Kip looked through his own cards. The twelve hours had done him no good at all.
“What are the stakes?” he asked.
“Higher, I told you.” Andross Guile said nothing else. He played his first card, setting the scene.
Kip played. He played one of his good cards too early—which he only realized at the end of the game—and got slaughtered. He would have lost regardless, but it was the first time he caught a glimpse of something beyond his own helplessness.
“So what are you going to do to me this time?” he asked.
“Pathetic. Not a drop of Guile blood in you, whinger. You don’t have to lose. You are losing because you choose to lose.”
“Right, I’m choosing to lose. Because it’s so fun.”
“Sarcasm is the sanctum of the stupid. Stop it. The stakes this time were the privilege of eating tomorrow. Tomorrow, you fast. Maybe it will focus your mind. Now, another game.”
“What are the stakes?” Kip asked, stubborn. It told him how little Andross Guile thought of him, though, that he thought not eating was a greater loss to Kip than a girl being sent home and losing everything she’d worked for.
“Higher.” Andross Guile began to shuffle his cards.
“No,” Kip said. “I don’t trust you. I think you’re making up stakes after the fact. I’m not playing until you tell the stakes.”
A thin smile curved Andross Guile’s lips. “Practicum,” he said. “You lose this time, you lose your practicum.”
“I lose that every time you make me come up here,” Kip said.