by Brent Weeks
An unwilling shiver went through Liv. She’d wanted to believe that Mistress Helel trying to assassinate Kip was an aberration, a woman ill in the head, delusional. She’d wanted to believe, as Gavin and Ironfist had said, that the Order was a loose collection of thugs taking on an old legendary name in order to raise their prices. But this woman seemed calm, professional, not a braggart. And the use of Mistress Helel as an assassin was nothing short of brilliant. Who would suspect a heavy, middle-aged woman of being an assassin?
So it was possible the Order was real. It was no wonder this woman was being so careful to show she posed no threat.
Seeing that Liv wasn’t going to speak, the woman hurried on. “The prince gave you a necklace; on it, there is a chunk of living black luxin. That jewel is a death sentence. It is the way he believes he can control you.”
“What? How does it work?”
She paused, painfully. “We don’t know, except that he believes he’s mastered it, and that it will compel obedience. He believes it enough that he’s willing to make gods.”
“You speak dangerous words.”
“Does he seem a man content with others having greater power than he does? He wishes to be a god of gods.”
“What do you wish of me?” Liv demanded. “You think to test my loyalty so easily?”
“The prince espouses freedom, does he not? How is a leash freedom?”
“Freedom doesn’t mean a lack of responsibilities. It means a choice between them. He is to make me a god.”
“Forgive me, Eikona, but you will make yourself a god, or fail. On your own. And black luxin is not so easily tamed as the prince believes.”
A shout from outside drifted in. “Casting off in two! Rowers to your places!”
“Black luxin,” Liv scoffed. “It’s merely obsidian.”
“How can you say so? You who have seen it?”
Liv turned away. The swirling jewel was in her pocket, ever in her pocket. And the prince’s instructions were clear: she must put it on before she claimed the bane. “It is … merely cunningly cut. Tricks of the light.”
“The stones are related, lady. The old stories aren’t lies, but they’ve been corrupted. Obsidian is black luxin, dead black luxin. It is said that all the obsidian in the world is the last remnant of a great war, thousands of years before Lucidonius. A holocaust that devoured light and life for millennia, from which we are still recovering. The living stuff … Eikona, it has will. It is insanity given form. It is a hole of nothingness that can never be filled. If you put it to your neck to feed and the prince’s control slips, it will kill you. It has will; it may have intellect, too. If it devours a goddess, who is to say what it would do next?”
So Liv had been right to be leery of having the thing next to her skin. If this girl was telling the truth. “What does the Order want?”
“Most of our knowledge has been lost to time and bloody purges. We are a weak, wan thing. A shadow of a shadow. And I the least of our folk, in case I was captured and tortured. We’re not your enemies, Eikona. Become Ferrilux. Serve the Color Prince. Do all that you wish, but do not put black luxin in the nexus of your power. Do not put it in the center of the bane. One slip, whether the prince’s or yours, and who is to say but that it would eat all the magic in the world?”
Chapter 28
They needed to have this out. Teia was in some sort of trouble, and Kip was going to make her tell him what it was. During a rest at practice, he’d told the squad a little about his adventure and almost the whole truth about what had happened to Gavin.
“There was a fight, over a dagger. Grinwoody tried to grab it and I tangled with him. Andross joined in and Gavin intervened. Everyone tangled up. My father diverted the blade into himself so I wouldn’t get stabbed.”
More than a few puzzled glances at that. Why was it harder to tell a partial truth than a complete lie? Kip rushed on. “But that wasn’t the amazing thing. I jumped in after him. I lit some red to make a beacon, and when we got pulled out by this pirate, the dagger was a dagger no longer. It was a full-length sword with seven jewels of each of the seven primes in the blade. And when they pulled it out, Gavin … Gavin was alive. He didn’t even bleed.”
They asked him questions then, most of which he couldn’t answer, and Cruxer swore them all to secrecy; then, because their break had already extended for half an hour, he called it a day.
Teia had slipped out of practice before he’d noticed, and he hadn’t seen her at dinner, so now he was waiting up for her in their room.
He’d been waiting half an hour, getting more and more cross, when he had a thought. He went to the tiny desk and found no papers. He hadn’t noticed before because they simply weren’t there. His ownership papers of Teia, that he’d already signed over. She’d taken them from his room, thinking him dead, and turned them in.
Of course she had. He couldn’t blame her for worrying that with him gone, anyone might take his signed transfer of title. That was why she wasn’t here. No longer his slave, she’d moved into the barracks. Good for her.
She owed him nothing, and the bond of master to slave—unwelcome though it had been—was gone. But maybe that had been the only bond they’d shared, and it felt like she’d given up on him.
He’d wanted her to be free, but he’d still wanted her to owe him, to be eternally grateful, to be somehow therefore subordinate. He’d wanted her to be free, but he wanted to decide for her how she should use her freedom.
Kip swore aloud, and went to bed.
The next morning, he went to breakfast, then checked the lists. He wasn’t on any work details. He supposed that meant he should go to class.
Class. Ugh. He stood in front of the lift with all the other students and withdrew into himself, carrying his black little storm cloud around with him.
Of course, there were a thousand things Kip still needed to learn. He had some experiential knowledge, but almost no other kind. It would hamper him eventually, he knew. Hell, it already had. The extent of his knowledge was the bouncy green balls of doom. Well, practically. It wasn’t going to be enough to keep him alive in the coming war.
Plus he’d managed to lose the knife that he was now more and more afraid was Important. Andross Guile had called it the Blinder’s Knife. It was only because he’d been vague with the squad about where it came from that they hadn’t asked him more about it. He’d let them think that it was Gavin’s.
And how did my mother come by that, anyway?
Kip walked in to Magister Kadah’s classroom. It was hard to believe that he’d first walked in here only a few months ago. He felt like he was ten years older. He sat at the back of the room. Even in a discipulus’s clothing again, he didn’t think he’d be able to escape notice, but there was no reason to stick his thumb in Magister Kadah’s eye.
More than he had to, anyway.
A voice whispered in his ear: “I hear you’ve connived your way into being declared legitimate, little bastard. Don’t think it changes anything. I know what you are.”
Kip turned. “So nice to see you, Magister.” He said it like he meant it.
She gave him a nasty grin. Kip’s training and fighting had changed him so much that perhaps he should have taken some solace in the fact that Magister Kadah looked exactly the same: shrunken like an old woman despite only being in her early thirties, disheveled with hair that hadn’t seen a pick since the last time Kip had been in class, green spectacles on a gold chain around her neck. “Should I get my switch ready?”
“I don’t know,” Kip said. “I’m just the ignoramus son of a whore.” He winced. Kip the Lip wasn’t so far in the past, apparently.
“Any more language like that, Kip Guile, and it’ll be knuckles. You remember, I believe?” Magister Kadah said.
Kip put his hands on the desk before him. The fingers of his left hand still bowed upward, stiff and stubborn, though he was working on them. The pain of getting that hand smashed with a switch would be excruciating. The whole
hand still felt like one exposed nerve.
He looked up at the magister, puzzled. What? He was supposed to be afraid of getting his knuckles rapped?
Teia and Ben-hadad came in right before class was supposed to start. They saw Kip, and mirrored each other’s surprise at seeing him there, looked at each other, and then sat next to him.
The magister went to the front of the class, cleared her throat, and waited the moment it took for the class to fall silent. “Discipulae.”
“Magister,” the class answered. Kip joined them. A new start, Kip.
“Discipulae, today we’re going to be discussing orange. Any orange drafters here today?”
A few discipulae raised their hands. Kip debated raising his, and raised a couple fingers.
“Orange is singularly useless,” Magister Kadah said. She grinned nastily. “You’ll spend your lives making lubrication for machines and for storing away metals so they don’t rust. It is, however, a relatively easy life. Your patron may have you draft barrels of the stuff each day, which may take you from sunrise to noon, and then to keep you from dying early, you’ll be done by noon every day. Some will, happily, have other duties for you to perform. Usually non-magical ones: cleaning stables, dusting furniture, mopping barracks. Yes, Ben-hadad?”
“Orange can be used for more than that,” Ben-hadad said. “And with a war looming that could destroy all of us, I think we should start training oranges to live up to their full potential.”
“Their full potential?” Magister Kadah asked. Her tone was meant to be a warning, but Ben-hadad seemed to think it was a real question.
“Oranges can craft hexes. It’s said that in Ru, orange spies infiltrating the city crafted fear hexes invisible to the naked eye but so potent that people avoided whole neighborhoods—allowing the heretics to tunnel under the walls unopposed. Oranges can spike food and drink. Fear-casting, tromoturgy. Pathomancy. Will-blunting.”
“Forbidden!” Magister Kadah snapped. “And at your level, forbidden to even discuss!”
“We’re at war!” Ben-hadad said. “I just heard that the last fort below Ruic Neck fell. From there, there’s nothing to stop the Color Prince until they reach the Ao River. Even if you won’t teach the oranges to craft hexes, you should be teaching us all how to resist them, and certainly how to recognize them.”
“This Color Prince will doubtless be put down in weeks if he hasn’t already been. None of you will have to face orange heretics.”
“There are people who have already faced the Blood Robes in this very room,” Ben-hadad said.
Thanks, Ben.
“I see. So you are friends now, is that it?” Magister Kadah asked Ben-hadad, looking from him to Kip. “Trying to make the ‘Guile’ look good? Quite the pair you make, huh? The ignoramus and the boy who can’t even read? How’d you learn all this?”
“I can read,” Ben-hadad hissed.
“The words just get scrambled for him is all, Magister,” Teia said. “He can read if he goes slow.”
“Slow is a nice way of saying stupid,” Magister Kadah said.
Kip sighed. He’d had the best intentions.
“Ben-hadad, you think being friends with this lordling will help you?” Magister Kadah asked. The whole class was silent, expectant.
“I’m not his friend because he can do something for me,” Ben-hadad said. “And I resent your implication. You dishonor me and you dishonor yourself by speaking such petty vileness.”
A wave of shock passed through the young teens. They looked like they didn’t want to look away for a heartbeat, in case they missed Magister Kadah’s head exploding.
Magister Kadah’s eyes widened, fists balled. “You think he can protect you?” she demanded. “Report yourself immediately, Ben-hadad … for expulsion.”
There was a collective gasp.
“Expulsion?” Ben-hadad asked, disbelieving.
“For gross insubordination. I’ve not used my power to expel a discipulus in three years. Perhaps it is time. You’re worthless as a drafter; you’ll be useful as an example.”
The old Kip would have jumped out of his seat and started shouting furiously. He would have tapped into the well of hatred at injustice that he’d carried since growing up with his addled mother. Growing up, it had never felt safe to be furious with her on his own behalf, but when he’d seen others suffering injustice, it had been there, hot and ready, a powerful insanity he could put on and only take off when he was exhausted. Kip had been going green golem since long before he could draft. Even Ram had feared him when he’d been like that.
Kip stood slowly. Teia tried to grab him, tried to keep him in his seat.
“What do you think you’re doing, Kip ‘Guile’? You think I can’t expel you, too?”
Of course she couldn’t. “You can’t even expel Ben-hadad,” Kip said. He spoke evenly, respectfully, even mournfully. He didn’t raise his voice, but he spoke loudly enough for all to hear. “He’s a Blackguard inductee, and if you think Commander Ironfist is going to let you thin his already strained ranks in a time of war, I wish you luck in the conflagration that will be your own career.”
A profound silence fell over the room. The whispering teenagers weren’t even whispering, and Kip’s tone somehow defanged Magister Kadah.
Respectfully, regretfully, Kip continued. “Magister, you weren’t always like this. You don’t like children, I understand that. It’s a failing, but all Orholam’s sons and daughters have failings. You’ve been assigned by an angry superior or perhaps through cruel chance to do work that has never fit you. You’ve served quietly in a difficult posting because you love Orholam and you love the Chromeria and you love the Seven Satrapies. But you hate your work, and I bet that you hate what you’ve become. You’re better than this. You’ve been punished for something, or perhaps for nothing, and you’ve done a lot of damage in turn. Not least of all to yourself. I will do what I can to help you.”
Kip stepped into the aisle, and without waiting to see how the magister would react, walked out of the classroom. He walked directly to the lift and headed to the top floor. He got off and checked in with the Blackguards. He recognized them: Baya Niel, who had helped kill the green god with Kip, and a curvy woman who he thought was named Essel. Teia had liked her a lot. “I’d like to speak with the White, if she has any time today,” Kip said. “Please.”
Baya Niel said, “We can ask her between her other meetings to squeeze you in. It may be a few hours, though. If you’re late to Blackguard training this afternoon, you’ll bear the consequences.”
Kip shrugged. Consequences.
He waited an hour before Baya Niel gestured to him, letting him through. Kip headed to the White’s room, past the Blackguards at the checkpoint and more outside her door. There had been an assassination attempt while Kip had been gone, foiled by the Prism himself, they said. That meant more guards, and more attentive ones. Kip was frisked twice.
When he got into the White’s office, he was surprised by how healthy she looked. She bade him come to stand in front of her desk, and for a long moment she studied him. She had secretaries and messenger slaves attending her while she saw to her daily business overseeing the Chromeria. Kip stood silent; he knew not to speak until spoken to.
“Do you know, I expected you to look more like Gavin. You look more like your grandfather and great-grandfather. Do you know you are exactly what so many of the great families were hoping for, treating their sons and daughters like stallions and mares to be bred for this trait or that? The Blood Wars made people who should have known better act like animals themselves, I’m afraid.”
“High Mistress?”
“Your eyes blue to gather light efficiently, your skin dark to hide when you draft, a muscular frame for war, and of course, above all, always and forever, your ability to draft seven colors. It’s not so simple, of course, to breed humans. And while some traits can be guessed with a fair degree of accuracy, we know not nearly the complexity of ourselves. I’ve
never seen a child with blue eyes who didn’t have at least two parents or grandparents with the same, but I’ve seen a girl darker than you who sprang from parents lighter than me. It almost got her mother killed by the father, jealous fool, who still suspected her patrimony until the girl was old enough he could see she had his nose and eyes both. The world is more marvelous than we know, Kip. But you’re here for a reason. What would you have of me?”
“A favor,” Kip said. “Actually, two.”
“I gathered. It’s rare that people come simply for my excellent company.”
“I’m sorry, have I done something to offend? I don’t know the protocol here,” Kip said. He still had a weight on his soul.
She shook her head. “Please, go on.”
“There’s a magister named Kadah. I think she’s requested transfers to other duties. Probably multiple times. Maybe long ago, and she has since given up. I think her transfers were blocked by some enemy of hers. Would you grant her application?”
The White looked pensive. She lifted a hand and gave some rapid set of signals that a secretary understood. A slave quietly hurried out the door. “An odd way to get rid of a magister you don’t like,” the White said.
“It’s not for me. It’s for her. She’s miserable, and she’s bad at her work because of it.”
“I’ll know the truth of it in an hour. I’ll decide then. And the second thing?” the White asked.
I want you to tell me about the Lightbringer, Kip wanted to say. I want you to tell me about the Blinder’s Knife.
“I need a tutor,” he said instead. “I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I have so much to learn. I’m a full-spectrum polychrome, and I can’t sit in a class where I’m only hearing things that I already know. Much less waste my time butting heads with a jealous magister.”
“You think I can find you a magister who isn’t jealous of a full-spectrum polychrome son of a Prism who’s being given preferential treatment?”