by Brent Weeks
“I was hoping you would do it,” Kip said.
She laughed, truly surprised. “Oh, Kip. I’d forgotten how audacious the young can be.”
“I’m … important,” Kip said.
She liked that less. Her smile faded, died.
“In a very narrow sense, is all I mean,” he continued. He struggled to find words. “My importance isn’t—I shouldn’t be given preference because of who I am. I’m important in that I have a vital function to perform.”
“And that is?” she asked, wary, perturbed.
I am to save my father, he wanted to say. It was a good purpose. Maybe it was even the purpose to which Orholam had called him. But if he said that, he would be lying. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But the task is what’s important. I am merely the tool by which it will be accomplished, and I ask you to prepare me for it. My audacity is to serve Orholam without fear, believing he will walk with me through fire.” He wanted to be that certain, thought that he should be that certain, so he didn’t realize it was a lie until it was already out of his mouth.
“Kip, we are all people of will here. Every man and every woman who wrestles light has tasted godhood. We are all important, or Orholam wouldn’t have given us these tools, wouldn’t have trusted us with these powers.”
“Like he trusted the Color Prince.” The words were out of Kip’s mouth before he could stop them. “I am so sorry, High Lady.” He bowed his head.
“Don’t you see, Kip, the Color Prince’s insanity and grasping for godhood is no counter to what I said. Power is the ultimate test of a man. The more you’re given, the more opportunities for corruption. That many fail the test doesn’t mean Orholam is wrong; it means that men are free. And great souls succeed or fail spectacularly.”
“Like my father,” Kip said.
“Your father most of all.” She hesitated, then waved her secretaries back. They immediately got up and went to stand by the door. One pulled a curtain between them and Kip and the White. Only a Blackguard remained, watching.
And my grandfather, he should have said. It was a perfect segue to address what he had seen. But what did he have to tell her? Andross was a wight, and then he wasn’t? Oh, and I lied to you and the entire Spectrum about what happened on the ship. Kip was pushing his luck as it was. He was like a novice Nine Kings player. On the boat, he’d prepared one move ahead, and the lies he had prepared had worked spectacularly with the Spectrum. But now he was simply playing whatever card came into his hand. The lies made a lattice, the old moves constrained the new ones.
How does Andross do it? Does he remember what lies he’s told every player?
Of course he does. That’s what the Guile memory is for, for him. Here Kip didn’t even know who all the players were. The White liked him, but he didn’t think she would find the lies of a sixteen-year-old amusing or masterful. She was old, and old people want to see young people as refreshingly direct, simple, sweet, and innocent.
He might be holding exactly the card she needed to play against Andross—for theirs was a game going on decades—but Kip couldn’t give it to her.
Perhaps, in this great game, there is no giving of cards. Only trades.
The White rummaged in her desk. She pulled out a small framed picture. “When I die, Kip, I want you to have this. And after you’ve used it, if he still lives, I want you to give it to Gavin.” She turned it around, and Kip saw that it was one of the new Nine Kings cards. “This is the work of a dear old friend of mine—”
“Janus Borig,” Kip said. He recognized the handiwork. He took the framed card from the White. It was called the Unbreakable. It was beautiful. Janus Borig had clearly lavished attention and time on this work. Where some of the cards were the product of haste and compulsion—though all showed her total mastery of her art—this card was as intricately painted as any Kip had seen. A young woman with fiery hair stood on a hill dominated by an oak, the smoking ruins of an estate to her left. To her right was an abyss. Tiny flecks of blue and green touched her gray eyes. Tears stood on each cheek, but her jaw was set, eyes fixed on some point in the distance.
“I’d just buried my youngest daughter,” the White said. “Calling me the Unbreakable has felt sometimes like a cruel joke, and other times a promise. I chose to live, to fight, even when fighting meant to fight despair and the taunts of meaninglessness that is the abyss. This card is not all pleasantness, but I should like to be understood, someday.”
“Damn, you were beautiful. And fierce! And—and I can’t believe I just said that out loud,” Kip said. He’d slipped up in recognizing the art. If he pretended to slip up in another direction, he might be able to distract her before she demanded to know how he knew Janus Borig’s work.
The White laughed. “Well, thank you. I think perhaps Janus was being kind.”
“Janus isn’t kind. She’s honest,” Kip said. “That’s what a Mirror…” does. Shit. Can’t hold a thought in your head for six seconds, can you, Kip?
“Don’t feel bad,” the White said. “I know an artful dodge when I hear one. And I’ve dealt with your father and grandfather for far too long to underestimate you, Kip, even if you are young.”
“You send satraps out of here crying, don’t you?”
“It’s happened,” she said drily. “Janus,” she said.
So Kip told her about his meetings with Janus Borig. He told her that the woman had been working on his card. He told her about the assassins with the shimmercloaks. He told her about Janus Borig dying in his arms.
He could see it was a blow to the White.
“Kip, this is vital. Did she save anything from the fire?”
Kip had been bracing himself for that question for the entire conversation. “She wanted me to grab something, but the fire was so intense, and there were piles of gunpowder everywhere. I was only able to grab the shimmercloaks.”
The White studied his face. “You’re a good liar, Kip, but I’ve dealt with the best. The shimmercloaks are good for killing people, but the cards are good for a thousand purposes. Janus wouldn’t have let you dawdle grabbing weapons while letting the truth burn. It was her whole life’s work.”
“She wasn’t conscious,” Kip said, not willing to let a good lie die.
I thought we were going to go with refreshingly direct. Dammit.
The White sighed. “I won’t ask more. I hope you’ve put them in a safe place. Don’t check on them often, else spies may find them by luck. Be ware of using them alone. I don’t know what all the new cards are, but I can imagine some of the events of recent history would flay your mind.”
With his own hand so recently burnt clean of skin, it was a metaphor with some resonance for Kip.
Kip moved to speak, but realized that correcting her to say that he didn’t actually know where the cards were would be to admit he had been lying. Every way he moved, she gained something.
“How come when you do this to me, I don’t hate you?” Kip asked.
“Box you in, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Unlike when Andross does it,” she said.
“Yes.” Emphatically.
“Because you can tell I love you and want the best for you.”
“Love me?” Kip scoffed. “You barely know me.”
“When you have lived either a very short time or a very long time—if you’ve lived well—you will be able to love easily, too. Broken hearts have fresh places to bond with new faces.”
Kip wasn’t sure how to take that, wasn’t sure he could believe it. He said, “You had other daughters? I mean, other than the one … Er, sorry.”
“Had, yes. Grandchildren, too. Had.” She stared at him for a while, inscrutably. She put away the framed card. For a moment, Kip wondered if she’d forgotten what he’d come here asking. Then he saw a twitch of amusement in her eyes. She could tell he was wondering if she was old and senile, and she was letting him wonder. It was a game to her.
And this woman was preparing for her death of old age? She was
brighter than the rest of the Spectrum combined!
Kip waited.
“I’m too busy to teach you myself, though you intrigue me, little Guile. I do hope you make it to full flower. You are a boy with such potential.” She closed her eyes for a moment, upbraiding herself. “Your pardon, a young man. I’m afraid that all men under forty are boys to me now. No, I can’t teach you. I will look into the matter of this magister, though. And … you do need a tutor; this much is plain. You will continue with those classes she cannot teach, but in all she can, Lady Guile will be your tutor.”
“Lady Guile?” Hadn’t Felia Guile joined the Freeing in Garriston? Kip wondered about that sometimes. She’d been in Garriston at the same time he had, and she’d never even asked to see him, her only grandson. Maybe a bastard was too shameful. “Oh! You mean Karris?!”
“Mmm,” the White said, with a little smirk.
“That’s great!” Kip said. Even if he was a little scared of her. She clearly knew everything, and she had his total respect.
“Attend your lectures—your other lectures—as usual until I can speak to her. She may need some convincing.” The White’s smirk faded. “Kip, Orholam walks men through fires every day. I believe that. But before you walk through fire, make certain it’s one he’s asked you to walk through.”
Chapter 29
After three days, the storm abated. Gunner had the Bitter Cob drop anchor in the lee of some little island while he waited for the skies to clear so they could find their bearings. The pirates were good enough to feed the slaves before they slept. Gunner was fastidious in keeping his goods performing at their highest potential.
Gavin slept like a stone, woke, and slept again. He dreamed again, and knew he was dreaming. He was a child, and everyone was gone. Mother and father were at the Chromeria: father for some ceremonies, and mother to be near him. Gavin got to go with them because he was older. Dazen and Sevastian had to stay home with the servants and house slaves. Dazen woke alone in his bed, and thought of calling for his nurse. He was eleven years old, almost. Too old to be afraid of the dark. He wasn’t sure what he’d heard, but he lay in bed, listening, almost too scared to breathe.
He was eleven. Too old to be such a scaredy.
Throwing off the covers, he reached from his bed to where his child-sized sword had fallen, trying to pick it up without stepping out of bed. It was too far away. He took his blanket and threw it over the sword, holding on to one edge. He pulled it toward himself, and it dragged the sword a little. In three more tries, he had it.
Swallowing, he drew the sword out of the scabbard. He heard glass break. It sounded like it came from outside, but he knew that was a trick of how the Guile home was laid out. The doors were huge, thick. Breaking glass could only mean that one of the other windows had been smashed down the hall. Sevastian’s room!
Dazen forgot his fear and jumped out of bed.
He threw his door open and ran. The hallway stretched longer and longer. He reached a full sprint, but the walls deformed. He was getting shorter and shorter, fading, fading.
When he reached Sevastian’s door, his hand passed through the latch. He couldn’t touch anything. Couldn’t change anything. His hand passed through the wood, too.
He threw himself at the door—through the door.
The blue wight snarled, standing over Sevastian’s bed, all blue skin and red blood. It jumped up to the window and disappeared into the night. Dazen only saw his little brother’s bloodied, broken body. He screamed. The smell of blood washed over him as he picked up Sevastian.
He was dead. The little boy had been pierced, a sword stroke or a spear thrust right in the middle of his chest. Little Dazen, wailing inconsolably, had no space for any other thought, but the dreamer saw more than he remembered. That sword or spear thrust had hit Sevastian high in the chest and come out the middle of his back. Sevastian had stood to confront the intruder, and been slain where he stood. A single, sure stroke. Good-hearted little Sevastian hadn’t even had time to dodge or fight, hadn’t believed someone would come to murder him in the night.
His own hands smearing blood on Sevastian’s perfect, angelic face, Dazen wailed. Lying there, eyes closed, Sevastian could have been sleeping. Dazen shook him.
“Wake up! Wake up!”
Gavin woke to Orholam shaking him.
It took Gavin long moments for rocking of the ship and the hardness of the wood under his back to sink in. One nightmare to another.
“These are the dreams you send me, Orholam?” he demanded. “Go to hell!”
Chapter 30
“Sailing galley. Ilytian canvas,” Leonus said.
Gavin thought it was horrible news, but the slaves murmured like it was a good thing. “What’s that mean?” he asked.
“Ilytian canvas, uh, uh, means Ilytian ship, uh, most like. Fuck. Fuck,” Fukkelot said.
“Don’t the Ilytians have the best cannons?” Gavin asked.
“Don’t matter,” Bugs said, across the aisle from Gavin. The man had some sort of condition, made his eyes bulge. It was hard to look at him, even in shades of gray. “Treat their slaves worse than they treat their dogs. Starve ’em, beat ’em so bad they can’t barely row. Ilytian galley can’t run as fast, can’t turn as fast as we can. Not by a long sight.”
It made sense, Gavin supposed. Ilytians captured more slaves than anyone, refused to be bound by the laws on the taking of slaves that the Chromeria imposed on the other six satrapies. If slaves were cheap, there was no need to take special care of them. The dead could be easily replaced. Ilytians were real bastards.
Gunner was Ilytian.
Gavin had found the man amusing, before he was under his power. Thought it was funny to play with Gunner’s mind by stoppering the man’s musket rather than killing him back when he sank his ship near Garriston. If he’d killed him, he wouldn’t be here now.
Funny how the mind can wander, even when rowing. Gavin’s frequently bloodied hands were wrapped now in cotton. He had a new empathy for Kip, who’d burned his left hand falling into a fire before the Battle of Garriston. His hands were agony every day. He’d thought he had a man’s hands before, rough and callused. He’d given himself too much credit.
“Win or die,” Leonus shouted.
The slaves didn’t shout the response. They hated Leonus.
“You worthless shit sacks! You shout back, or I’ll keelhaul every last one of you! Boy!” he shouted to the young man who had taken his old job as foreman’s second. “Whip that line. Now!”
The boy hesitated.
“Now!”
The boy lashed the whip across the bare backs of one of the lower rows. They cried out in pain. More than necessary, Gavin thought, but the boy hadn’t hit them as hard as Leonus liked.
“Win or die!” Leonus shouted.
“Row to hell!” the slaves replied.
“Never slack!”
“Row to hell!”
“Scratch the back of Shadow Jack!” Leonus shouted.
“Row to hell!”
“Row right back!” he shouted.
The drums began pounding out their tempo, and Leonus disappeared to the next slave deck.
“Don’t think I’m going to make it through this one,” Nine said.
“You never think you’re going to make it through, Itchy.”
“This time’s different. I can feel it.”
As before, with scores of men sweating in the tight confines of the rowing deck, it got hot fast. It was a bright, calm day outside, which meant this would be a clean, simple race to the death.
The drums pounded their steady tempo, and Gavin rowed. And rowed. And rowed. Twenty minutes. The boy went around and gave them water. At least he didn’t smash their lips with the long-handled cup. Not on purpose, anyway. Thirty minutes.
Finally, Leonus poked his ugly head belowdecks. “Drums, corso!”
The drums picked up, and Gavin settled into the new tempo happily. Happily. How strange was that? There was
something oddly freeing about having no decisions to make. Go when they say go. Stop when they say stop. Eat when they say eat. Avoid the lash. Take your double serving of strongwine.
What am I going to do if I get free anyway, Karris? I can’t draft anymore. Will you still love me when you find out I’m not what I was?
He could imagine the looks in people’s eyes, the pity. He had been respected, loved, and feared in every corner of the Seven Satrapies, but the foundation of his power had always been his drafting. He’d been so much better than everyone else—so effortlessly good—that he’d become nothing else. He wasn’t a man; he was a drafter. You couldn’t think about Gavin without knowing he was the Prism, that he was drafting. That he was the best. The best now, probably the best in hundreds of years. Without that, he was … what?
An arrogant figurehead who ritually murdered scores of drafters every year. A hothead who threw young women off his balcony when they displeased him. And got away with it.
Other drafters made the transition from magical power to political power with no problem. The White had done it gracefully, his father less so. But Gavin? It wasn’t in him. And it was one thing to stop drafting because you believed you still had service to give; it was quite another to not be able to. A man might take an oath of celibacy and be respected; a man castrated was at best pitied.
And there was no hiding the loss. By this Sun Day, it would be over, for good or ill. He would either draft while performing the Sun Day rituals, or fail to do so, or if he didn’t make it back to the Chromeria by then, someone else would be named Prism. It was that simple. How far away was that now? Four months?
Karris, my life will be over in four months. No matter what. I’m so sorry. I wasted so much time. I wanted us to have a life. I wanted us to have children, to see you holding new life in your hands, to be whole with you.
Gavin suddenly wanted to vomit, and it wasn’t from the exertion.
The drummer sped the tempo again, and Gavin didn’t care. And again, the last sprint, but his mind was still, impenetrable, the actions all at a long remove.