The Blinding Knife Page 3

  “What are you looking for?”

  “If I’ve lost control of blue, Corvan, that means blue is out of control.”

  Corvan looked momentarily confused, then aghast. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never read a serious scholar who thought the bane were anything other than bogeymen the Chromeria invented to justify the actions of some of the early zealots and the luxors.”

  The bane. Corvan used the old Ptarsu term correctly. The word could be singular or plural. It had probably meant temple or holy place, but Lucidonius’s Parians had believed they were abominations. They’d acquired the word itself as they’d acquired the world.

  “And if they’re wrong?”

  Corvan was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “So you’re going to show up on the Nuqaba’s doorstep and say, ‘As the head of your faith, please show me your heretical texts and tell me the stories which I of all people am most likely to find deserving of death,’ and expect them to do it? I guess it qualifies as a plan. Not a good one, mind you.”

  “I can be awfully charming,” Gavin said.

  Corvan smiled, but turned away. “You know,” he said, “what you did yesterday with the sea demon was… astounding. What you did in Garriston was astounding, and not just the building of Brightwater Wall. Gavin, these people will follow you to the ends of the earth. They will spread word of what you’ve done to anyone they meet. If it came down to a fight between you and the Spectrum…”

  “The Spectrum already has more malleable candidates lined up to be the next Prism, Corvan. If I defy them now, I’ll be in as bad of a spot as Dazen was seventeen years ago. I won’t put the world through that again. The people can love me, but if all their leaders unite against me, I’ll win nothing except for death for my friends and allies. I’ve done that once.”

  “So, what? You’re just going to leave us? What are you going to do about Kip? He’s a tough kid, but he’s damaged and I think you’re the only thing he’s holding on to. If he finds out you’re not who you say you are, he could shatter. There’s no telling what he’d turn into. Don’t do that to your soul, Gavin. Don’t do that to the world. The last thing the Seven Satrapies need is another young polychrome Guile, mad with rage and grief. And what are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to put all these people?”

  “Corvan, Corvan, Corvan. I’ve got a plan.” Sort of.

  “Somehow, my friend, I was afraid of that.” The crow’s nest swayed hard as the ship caught a rogue wave, and Corvan looked down at the deck far below, swallowing. “I don’t suppose it includes an easy way for me to get down?”

  Chapter 6

  Ironfist grimaced at the missive in his hand. Usually, that expression, from him, toward Gavin, would be a quick twitch, quickly smoothed away. This time, his face twisted as if he were eating steak smoked in poisonwood. “You’re having me deliver orders. To the White,” Ironfist said.

  Gavin had summoned the big bodyguard to his stateroom after trying several rooms to see which suited his purposes best. “Regarding my son. Yes.” As Prism, Gavin didn’t have any authority over the White, but she had to be careful not to offend him. Both of them had to choose their battles with each other. He thought this was one she wouldn’t choose.

  “You want Kip made a Blackguard.” Ironfist kept his voice flat. He was the Blackguard’s commander. Technically, he alone was supposed to decide who was invited to try to join. “Lord Prism, I’m struggling to find where to start explaining how wrong and destructive that would be.”

  It was a sunny day out, but the gleaming dark woods of the stateroom soaked up light, made Gavin have to concentrate to see the commander’s expressions. “I hope you know, Commander, that I have supreme respect for you.”

  Slight eyebrow twitch. Disbelief. It actually was true, but Gavin supposed he hadn’t given Ironfist many reasons to believe that.

  Gavin continued, “But we find ourselves in a situation that requires quick action. Refugees. Aggrieved satraps. A city lost. Rebellion. Ring a bell?”

  Ironfist’s face turned to stone.

  Gavin needed to handle this better. Tell the man you respect him, and then treat him like he’s an idiot? “Commander,” he said, “how many Blackguards did you lose at Garriston?”

  “Fifty-two dead. Twelve wounded. Fourteen so close to breaking the halo that they’ll have to be replaced.”

  Gavin paused long enough to be respectful of the loss. He’d already known the number, of course. Knew the faces and the names of the dead. The Blackguard was the Prism’s personal guard, and yet not under his control. He was treading on that line. “And pardon me for speaking so bluntly, but that number must be replenished.”

  “Three years at least, and the quality of the Blackguard as a whole won’t recover for ten or more. I’ll have to promote people who are inadequately trained. They’ll not be able to train those beneath them as well. You understand what your actions have done to us? Killed a generation and retarded two. I’ll leave the Blackguard a shadow of what it was when I got it.” Ironfist kept his voice level, but the fury beneath it was unmistakable. Uncharacteristic for him.

  Gavin said nothing, jaw clenched, eyes dead. This was the hell of leading: to see a man as an individual with hopes, families, loves, favorite foods, more alert in the morning or at night, fond of hot peppers and dancing girls and singing off key. Then the next hour to see him as a number and be willing to sacrifice him. Those thirty-eight dead men and fourteen women had saved tens of thousands of people, had almost saved the city. Gavin had put them in a place where he knew they might die, and they had. He’d do it again. He held Ironfist’s gaze.

  Ironfist looked away. “Lord Prism,” he added. There was no remorse in his voice, but Gavin didn’t require unquestioning obedience. Just obedience.

  Gavin glanced up at the open space above the rafters between his stateroom and the next. “The Blackguard requires recruits. The autumn class probably hasn’t even started yet, and Kip is ideal. You’ve seen him draft.”

  “It’s too physically demanding. Twenty weeks of hellish training and fights every month that purge the deadwood. From forty-nine to the seven best. He’d never make it even if he hadn’t burned his hand. If he slims down, maybe in a year or—”

  “He’ll make it,” Gavin said. It wasn’t an expression of confidence.

  Silence as Ironfist grappled with the implication. Then disbelief. “You want me to induct him undeservedly?”

  “Do I need to answer that?”

  “You’ll publicly make him a favorite? You’ll destroy that boy.”

  “Everyone will think he’s favored regardless.” Gavin shrugged and made sure he was speaking forcefully. “He’ll serve the purpose for which he was made, or he’ll break in pursuit of it, just like the rest of us.”

  Commander Ironfist didn’t reply. He was a man who understood the power of silence.

  “Come with me, Commander.” They walked together out to a balcony. The door between the rooms was thin, and there were open spaces beside the rafters, perhaps so the captain could yell orders to his secretaries who in normal times had their offices in the cuddy. The exchange hadn’t gone exactly how he wanted, but it would serve. Kip should have overheard everything.

  Now Gavin had some words for Ironfist, out of Kip’s hearing. “Kip is my son, Commander. I acknowledged him as such when I could have instead let him die without anyone knowing better. I’m not going to destroy Kip. He’s fat, and he’s awkward, and he’s a powerful polychrome. He’s going to grow up fast when he gets to the Chromeria. He can become a laughingstock or he can become a great man. He’s getting a late start. The satraps’ sons and daughters will devour him. I want you to soak up every hour of his time, remake him physically, make him tough mentally, make him learn the measure of himself. When he’s earned the respect of the Blackguards, when he doesn’t care what the vipers think of him, I’ll ask him to quit the Blackguard and jump in the vipers’ den.”

  “You’re grooming him to be the nex
t Prism,” Ironfist said.

  “Why, Commander, Orholam alone chooses his Prisms,” Gavin said.

  It was a joke, but Ironfist didn’t laugh. “Indeed, Lord Prism.”

  Gavin kept forgetting that Ironfist was a religious man.

  “I’m not going to go easy on him,” Ironfist said. “If he’s to join my Blackguard, he has to earn it.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Gavin said.

  “He’s a polychrome.” Polychromes were strongly discouraged from such dangerous service.

  “He wouldn’t be the first exception,” Gavin said. He would be the first in a long, long time.

  Unhappy silence. “And somehow I have to convince the White to allow this.”

  “I trust you.” Gavin grinned.

  Ironfist’s glare could have soured honey. Gavin laughed, but he noted it again. Ironfist respected him, but Gavin’s charm did nothing to this man.

  “You’re leaving us,” Ironfist said slowly. “After you got half my people killed, you’re planning to leave, and leave us behind, aren’t you?”

  Damn.

  Ironfist took his silence for assent. “Know this, Prism: I won’t allow it. I won’t do anything at all for you if you don’t let me do my job. If you make my work meaningless, why should I help yours? Is this what you call supreme respect?”

  Ah. Note to self: charm is less effective on people who have good reason to kick your ass. Gavin raised his hands. “What do you want?”

  “Not want. Demand. You take a Blackguard with you. My choice. I don’t know what your mission is, but where one can go, two can. Note that I would much rather you travel with an entire squad, but I’m a reasonable man.”

  It actually was far more reasonable than Gavin would have expected. Maybe Ironfist wasn’t as good at politics as Gavin had thought. Of course, he was probably too busy figuring out how to kill things efficiently to get as much practice in politics as Gavin got. Ironfist probably meant to come with Gavin himself—which would definitely not work, but after Ironfist thought about all the work he had to do rebuilding and training the Blackguard, he would realize that. Too late.

  “Done,” Gavin said quickly, before the man could reconsider.

  “Then it’s a deal,” Ironfist said. He extended a hand, and Gavin took it. It was an old Parian way of sealing deals, not much used anymore. But Ironfist looked Gavin in the eye as he clasped his hand. “I’ve already had someone request the assignment,” he said.

  Impossible. I didn’t even tell him I was leaving until—

  “Karris,” Ironfist said. And then he smiled, toothily.

  Bastard.

  Chapter 7

  Kip sat in the secretaries’ office, fiddling nervously with the bandage on his left hand as Ironfist and Gavin talked on the balcony off the ship’s stern. He had been seated with his back to the wall between the office and the Prism’s stateroom, but having overheard too much, he quietly moved to one of the secretaries’ chairs, farther back from the wall, so it wouldn’t look like he’d been eavesdropping.

  A Blackguard. Him. It was like winning a contest he hadn’t even known he was competing in. He hadn’t really thought about his future yet; he figured the Chromeria would take the next few years of his life and he’d go from there. But the toughest people he knew in the world were Blackguards: Karris and Ironfist.

  The stateroom door opened and Ironfist stepped out. He gave Kip a sharp look. A disapproving look. And all at once Kip realized he was being imposed on Ironfist—the man didn’t want Kip the fatty debasing his Blackguards. His heart dropped so fast it left a smoking crater in the deck.

  “The Prism will see you now,” Ironfist said. And he left.

  Kip stood on weak knees. He walked into the stateroom.

  The Prism Gavin Guile, the man who’d made Brightwater Wall and faced a sea demon and sunk pirates and crushed armies and cowed satraps—his father—smiled at him. “Kip, how are you feeling? You did some pretty amazing things the other day. Come. I need to see your eyes.”

  Feeling suddenly awkward, Kip followed Gavin out onto the stern balcony. In the bright morning light, Gavin looked at Kip’s irises.

  “A definite green ring. Congratulations. No one will ever mistake you for a non-drafter again.”

  “That’s… great.”

  Gavin smiled indulgently. “I know it’s a lot to get used to, and I suppose someone’s already told you this, but you used a lot of magic in the battle, Kip. A lot. Going green golem isn’t something we teach anymore because a person can generally only do it two or three times in their life. It burns through your power—and your life—at an incredible rate. The power’s intoxicating, but beware of it. You’ve seen some of the greatest drafters in the world work, and you can’t assume that you can do everything they can do. But look at me, lecturing. Sorry.”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s…” It’s the kind of thing a father does. Kip didn’t say it out loud. He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat.

  Gavin looked over the waves at his fleet following them. He was somber, pensive. Finally, he spoke. “Kip, I don’t get to be fair to you. I can’t spend the time with you that you deserve, that I owe you. I can’t tell you all the secrets that I wish I could. I can’t introduce you to your new life the way I wish. You’ve chosen to be known as my son, and I respect that. That’s how you’ll be known. As my son, I have work for you to do, and I need to tell you what that work is now, because I’m leaving today. I’ll come to the Chromeria every once in a while, but not often. Not for the next year.”

  There were too many thoughts at once. Everything Kip knew had been turned on its head too many times. In the last few months he’d gone from being a child with a haze-addled single mother to losing his village, his mother, his life. He’d been flung into the Chromeria, and into the company of the best drafters and fighters in the world.

  And on the very day his father had accepted him, recognized him as a son instead of a bastard, he’d found a note from his mother claiming Gavin Guile had raped her. She’d begged Kip to kill Gavin. She’d probably been high when she wrote it, of course. So it had been the last thing she’d written. It didn’t magically make it different from all the other lies she’d told Kip over the years.

  She said she loved me. Kip quickly rejected the thought and the well of emotions it tapped.

  Some of it must have shown in his face, though, because Gavin said quietly, “Kip, you have every right to be angry, but I have something impossible to ask of you. I’m going to send you on to the Chromeria. I expect you to do well in all your classes, of course. But honestly, I don’t care, so long as you learn as much and as quickly as you can. What I really want is…” He trailed off. “This has to be our secret, Kip. I’m putting my very life in your hands by even asking you this. And you may, of course, fail or choose not to do this, but—”

  Kip swallowed. Why was his father dancing so carefully about asking him to join the Blackguard? “You’re scaring me more by hedging than you would if you just told me,” Kip said.

  “First, you have to impress your grandfather without me there. He will summon you. He will not be pleasant. We’ll count it a victory if you avoid wetting yourself.” He grinned that Guile grin, then sobered. “Do your best. If you can impress him, you’ll have done more than I ever could. But whatever you do, don’t make an enemy of him.”

  “And that’s going to be impossible?”

  “No—well, maybe—but I was starting with the easy assignment. I want you to destroy Luxlord Klytos Blue.”

  Kip blinked. That wasn’t “Join the Blackguard” either. “That thing about being more scared by your hedging than the assignment? I take it back.”

  “By destroy, I mean do whatever you have to do to make him resign his seat on the Spectrum. I need that seat, Kip.”

  “For what?”

  “I can’t tell you. What you should ask is, what do I mean when I say, ‘Do whatever you have to’?”

  “Right, then, that,” Kip said.
He was hoping this was all some kind of joke, but the feeling in his stomach told him that it wasn’t.

  “If you can’t get Klytos to resign of his own will, or through blackmail, kill him.”

  A chill radiated from Kip’s spine to his shoulders. He swallowed.

  “Your choice. I’m trusting you with that. This is war, Kip. You saw what happens when the wrong man is in power. The governor of Garriston could have prepared his city. He knew what was coming. Preparing the city would have made him deeply unpopular and it would have cost him a fortune. So instead, he chose to let them all die. One man caused all that carnage, simply by his inaction. If we hadn’t been there, it would have been much, much worse. This is like that. That’s all I can tell you.”

  It was impossible, but Kip felt a calm. The impossibility didn’t matter right now. He could grapple with that when his father was gone. “Does he deserve it?” he asked.

  Gavin took a deep breath. “I want to say yes to make it easier on you, but ‘deserving’ is a slippery concept. Does a coward who deserts his comrades deserve to be shot? No, but it has to be done because the stakes are so high. Klytos Blue is a coward who believes lies. If a man believes lies and repeats them, is he a liar? Maybe not, but he has to be stopped. I don’t believe Klytos is an evil man, Kip. I don’t believe he deserves to die out of hand or I’d kill him myself. But the stakes are high, and they’re rising. Do what you must. Get in the Blackguard first. I’ve secured a tryout for you. Get in, and the position will help you accomplish the rest.”

  Sure. Simple as that. Of course, for Gavin Guile, it probably was as simple as that. Things were so easy for a man of his powers, he probably thought they were easy for other people. “What are we trying to do?” Kip asked. “Ultimately, I mean.”

  “War is a spreading fire. And every old grudge is dry wood, begging for flame. When I fought my brother, men joined me who hated me, but they hated their neighbors more, and those neighbors then sided with him. We killed two hundred thousand people in less than four months, Kip. I had a chance to stop this new war at one city, a few thousand dead. I failed. There are satrapies that wouldn’t mind seeing Atash burn, that wouldn’t mind that fire spreading to Blood Forest, that don’t want their sons to die defending Ruthgar, that don’t want their daughters to have to be Freed after defending Paria, that don’t want to raise their taxes for Ilytian heathens, that don’t want to send their crops to those filthy Aborneans.”