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Dazen had a nasty smile on his face. "So who was it? Do you even know her name? Did she have proof?"

He was fishing, hoping Gavin would give him something for nothing. And he would suspect Gavin if Gavin gave it to him. But Gavin went ahead. "His face is proof enough. He's the very image of Sevastian."

Dazen's face paled. "Don't you bring Sevastian into your lies, you monster, don't you dare."

"We've adopted the boy. His name is Kip. Good kid. Smart. Talented. A bit awkward, but he'll grow."

"I don't believe you." Dazen looked sick. He might not believe it, but he was close. "Who's the mother?"

Gavin shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "Lina."

"You lie!" Dazen snarled and slapped a hand against the blue luxin separating them. "Karris would never take that harlot's bastard!" It was real fury, after sixteen years bathing in placid blue light, something deep and hot and too instant to be false.

Which told Gavin three things. But some purposes are best achieved by misdirection. "She had a rosewood box," he said, "about this long. Do you know what was in it?"

The expression on Dazen's face told Gavin he'd made a mistake. Head pulled back, stunned, then confusion, hope, and finally laughter. There was genuine joy. Dazen kept laughing, shaking his head, prolonging the laugh, now, rubbing it in. He leaned against the blue luxin between them, but naturally, confident. "Here's what bothers me more than everything else," Dazen said. "More than your betrayal. More than your murders. More than the cruelty of imprisoning me rather than just killing me. More than you stealing Karris. More than all the rest of it together. How is it that no one has noticed?"

"We're not doing this again, dead man," Gavin said. "You don't want to trade, fine. I'll be going."

"This is my trade. Let me hear you say it, and I'll tell you all about the dagger."

Dagger? Dazen had dropped that tidbit deliberately. Oh, shit. Gavin had overlooked something. His chest tightened, throat clamped shut. It was hard to breathe, harder still to keep his face smooth.

There was no one here. No one who could overhear if he said it aloud. It wasn't new information. If he could get new information for old, it wasn't a loss. But it felt like one.

Gavin moistened his lips. "My name is Dazen Guile, and I stole your life."

"How'd you do it, Dazen? How did no one notice?"

I took your clothes and strode out of the flames at Sundered Rock. My face was swollen from our fight. I'd already given myself your scar and cut my hair like yours. I just started giving orders, and your people became mine. "I just acted like a selfish asshole, and everyone assumed I was you," he said, feigning nonchalance.

The prisoner laughed, ignoring the last part. "Well, it's a beginning. Feels good, doesn't it? They say confession is good for the soul."

Dazen-Gavin!-snarled, "Now… about that dagger."

"It's my vengeance, little brother," the prisoner said. "It is the sweet song of victory," the prisoner said. "It is the sting in the night. Dryness in your bones. Sleeplessness and terrors. It is your death and my freedom, Dazen. It is the end of all your lies."

"And apparently I've only heard the beginning of yours," Gavin said, sneering. His brother was lying. Had to be. He was just trying to make Gavin worry. He was chained, not witless. Confined, not toothless.

The real Gavin laughed. "No, you see, the beauty of it is that I don't have to lie. What are you going to do, little brother? You don't have the spine to starve me. No, you'll just watch it coming. Death will draw his sword and you will stand and do nothing. It's always been your way." He laughed again. "I have nothing more to say to you. Begone."

Dazen trembled. Every word his brother said touched some deeper well. The time Karris's elder brother Rodin had sworn to beat Dazen, and Dazen had stood still, waiting, not really believing Rodin would do it until it was too late. The terrible dreams Dazen had had as a child, and for which the elder Gavin had mocked him. Even being dismissed, as Dazen had always hated. Orholam damn him, Gavin had always known the cracks in his armor. Dazen shook his head.

No, he was Gavin now. The mask had to be total, even in his own thoughts. At all times. Dazen was another life. "Dazen" was the wretch on the other side of the luxin now. Dazen was the weak bastard trying to anger him so that Gavin would kill him. That's all this was. The prisoner was terrified, weak. He was a shell. He was trying to provoke Gavin to kill him because he couldn't summon the courage to suicide. That was all.

The man Gavin had once been would have killed the prisoner and been done with it. In the war, Dazen had become ruthless. Dazen loved the clash of arms, the splash of blood. Dazen loved his mastery over other men. Dazen would crush those who rose against him. Now, as Gavin, he wouldn't be pulled back to that. He wouldn't give his brother the satisfaction. "Well," Gavin said. "It was a pleasure as always, but it's getting late"-of course, it was barely noon, but he liked making the real Gavin wonder just how disoriented he was down here-"and Karris is eager tonight. She made me promise not to keep her waiting." That's for cheating on her and leaving me with the mess, you bastard. "So a good evening to you, Dazen."

The prisoner said, "Your lies are failing already, Dazen. You just keep wondering who already knows, and how they're plotting against you. Sweet dreams."

"There are worse things than waking from a nightmare to find yourself in the arms of the woman you love. Say, waking in a cell. Sweet dreams to you too, brother." Gavin touched the glass and it went dark, and once more the cell began its slow, slow rotation into the earth.

Gavin leaned against the cold wall, trying to calm his racing heart. It wasn't a loss; he'd learned some things from his brother. First, he had indeed been cheating on Karris. Kip was Gavin's bastard. Second, Gavin had known Kip's mother-and she wasn't a prostitute. If she had been, he would have said, "Karris would never take a harlot's bastard." Instead, he'd said, "That harlot's bastard," which meant he intended the word as a slur, not a description. Third-unless he was far, far smarter than Gavin gave him credit for, which was possible-the real Gavin still wasn't getting information from the outside.

That was why Gavin had put all of this lies all in the past tense: Kip's discovery. A month of not sharing a bed with Karris, decisions already made about raising Kip. If someone were passing him news, the prisoner would be confused by the chronological disparity-which, because it didn't seem to serve a purpose, he wouldn't expect to be a lie. Gavin didn't expect his brother to voice his confusion, of course, but he was hoping to see it in his eyes. There had been none.

So Dazen wasn't getting information from the outside, which meant he wasn't plotting with this "Color Prince," whoever the hell that was. So the Color Prince was merely using a retelling of the Prisms' War to agitate dissent. All the world believed Gavin had won, and the Color Prince didn't like how things had turned out, so he was pretending to be in league with the losing brother-whom he had no idea was actually alive. This Color Prince was a liar and an opportunist then, not a zealot who knew the truth.

Which meant there was only one place the Color Prince could be: Tyrea. Either King Garadul was the Color Prince himself, or the two were connected.

Thank you, brother. Very helpful. And you used to be better at lying than I was.

But after the prison finally settled into place, he checked and double-checked all his chromaturgy. Nothing was out of place. And yet, even as he ascended up the shaft and out of the evernight he'd created down here for his brother, he trembled. He was as trapped as Gavin was.

I could just stop feeding him. I wouldn't even have to do anything. I could just take a vacation, tell Marissia not to drop the dyed bread down the chute while I'm gone. He'd simply… die.

He remembered when they'd been children and Dazen had climbed the lemon tree to prove he could do everything his older brother could-and fallen. They thought he'd broken his ankle. Gavin had carried him all the way home. A small thing, for an adult, but Gavin had been reduced to tears by the effort. But he refused to give up. His little brother had never forgotten it.

And now the little brother is going to kill that man in cold blood, without even having the courage to face him as he did it?

Enough. All the world knows your brother is dead. You are all they know. Besides, you need your wits about you. You have to tell the Spectrum you started a war. And then you need to convince them to fight it your way.

I do have a chance. Just as long as the White's in a good mood.

Unless…

Oh, Gavin Guile, sometimes you do play a deep game, don't you? He grinned to himself. Seven years, seven goals. One impossible prize. A small failure could serve his greatest success.

Gavin made it back to his room and was putting everything back in place to disguise the door in the closet again when there was a sharp rap at the door. He threw the closet closed as the White opened the door.

"Good to see you, Lord Prism!" she said.

Gavin was painfully aware of the mess in front of him and the burn on the back of his shirt-a burn he had no good way to explain if she saw it. "And you, High Mistress," he said, smiling. "Just the person I wanted to talk to, if we could meet in a few moments, perhaps in your chambers?"

Orea Pullawr looked at him sharply. "I'm afraid that's going to have to wait. There's a class waiting for you. A class you promised me you'd teach." Her nose twitched. "Did you burn something in here?"

"Um, yes?" Gavin said. It came out as a question. Damn it.

" 'Um, yes?' "

Gavin cleared his throat. "Yes."

She waited.

He said nothing more.

"Very well, then. Be like that. I thought you left to take care of that color wight."

Ah, she was angry because she thought he'd neglected a mission whose abandonment might mean people dying. And she would have been sure, it being a blue, that he would go immediately. And she didn't know why he'd summoned the Spectrum. The White didn't like to be left in the dark. "Consider it taken care of," Gavin said. Which she would interpret to be him blowing her off, but he didn't know how to not tell her about the skimmer if he was fully honest.

After showing it to the boy and Karris, it was a secret he couldn't expect to keep much longer, but that would be a big conversation, and he wasn't ready for it yet.

She lifted her eyebrows, like, You're going to be dismissive, to me?

A thought hit him. "The class is superviolets?"

The White nodded, suspicious.

"There's a girl from Tyrea in that class, isn't there? Alivia?"

"Aliviana Danavis, from Rekton."

So he'd remembered correctly. A girl from Kip's town. Perfect.

He hesitated. Kip had said Corvan was there, but…"No relation, surely?"

"Actually, she's General Danavis's daughter."

Gavin let the shock show as dull surprise, like he'd just heard about some minor tragedy on the other side of the world. He'd heard the girl's surname was Danavis before, but he'd assumed it was some distant relation, if any. Corvan's own daughter? And why had Corvan been living in the same town as Gavin's bastard? Coincidence? If so, that was a heavy coincidence.

Regardless, it required Gavin's attention, right away. "Huh. You're right, I need to go teach that class. It's a holy responsibility." Juggling, always juggling.

"I always distrust you when you get dutiful," the White said.

He smiled, blandly innocent.

Chapter 37

It seemed to Kip that the entire first floor of the Prism's Tower was a jungle of benches, desks, signs, queues, and clerks. Obviously, the whole business of the Chromeria passed through this room. There were queues for traders seeking contracts for food, queues for traders delivering contracted food, the same for every other trade good Kip could imagine, queues for redress of grievances caused by Chromeria residents, queues for laborers seeking work, queues for adjudicating fee disputes on Big Jasper. There were even queues for nobles-although there were many more clerks staffing that one than any of the others. The room had a busy hum, but despite the crowd, it was obvious that the Chromeria ran like a well-oiled mill. The people were impatient but not angry, bored but not surly.

Commander Ironfist led Kip to a desk with a single clerk, and no queue at all. "All the rest of this year's darks were admitted weeks ago."

"Darks?" Kip asked.

"That's what people like you are called. Unofficially. Supplicants, officially: you want to be part of the Chromeria, but you aren't yet. So you're a dark. Darks, dims, glims, gleams, beams. But you don't need to remember any of that right now."

Kip opened his mouth, shut it. Ironfist said nothing until they reached the desk. The clerk, obviously daydreaming, sat bolt upright when he noticed Commander Ironfist.

"Yes, Commander? How may I assist you?"

"I have a supplicant for immediate testing."

"Immediate as in…"

"Now."

The clerk's throat bobbed. "Yes, Commander. Supplicant's name?"

"Kip. Kip Guile," Ironfist said.

The clerk grabbed his quill, began writing, got halfway, froze. "Guile as in…?"

"As in, no one needs to hear it from you. Is that a problem?" Ironfist asked.

"No, sir. I'll just go talk to my superiors. You could go ahead up to the testing room. I'm sure the testers will be along presently." With a quick bob of his head, the clerk got up and ran to a back office.

"I understand the rest, but what's a glim?" Kip ask as they climbed the stairs together. He trod on his sagging pant leg, which had fallen lower as he climbed the stairs, and he almost pitched forward on his face. He cleared his throat and hiked up his pants. Life would be so much easier if he had a waist.

"A glimmer," Ironfist said.

Ah, dark, dim, glimmer, gleam, beam. A light progression, then.

Ironfist said, "Now quiet. This is supposed to be solemn. You go into the room and don't say anything until your testing is finished. Got it?"

Kip almost said yes, then nodded instead. This might be harder than he had thought. Ironfist gestured to the door, and Kip walked in. Ironfist closed the door behind him.

The room was utterly plain. One wall curved slightly inward, so Kip guessed that was the outer wall of the tower. Other than that irregularity, the room was a square, ten paces wide, all white stone with a single wood table and a single wood chair. The room was lit by a strange white crystal set into the wall, the same kind Kip had seen in all the halls and even, now that he thought of it, in the great room downstairs with all the queues. Kip flopped into the chair. It had been an exhausting week. Had it only been yesterday that he'd been skimming across the waves, that he'd tried to drown, tried to sail? Had it only been a few days since… No, Kip wasn't going to think about that. Too jagged. Too heavy. He'd be blubbering again if he wasn't careful.

He'd been waiting for several hours when he heard the muffled exchange of angry words from the hall. That was definitely Ironfist, laying into somebody. Kip swallowed hard. He wanted to get up and eavesdrop, but he knew that with his luck as soon as he got to the door it would open.

Whatever the argument had been about, it was over as quickly as it began. The door didn't open. Kip waited. And waited. He was just starting to get tired, eyes drooping, when the door popped open.

A man of perhaps thirty, wearing red spectacles hung from a red cord around his neck, came in. He was clearly furious. Apparently not the winner of the argument, then. "Darks will stand!" he snarled.

Kip shot to his feet. His chair skittered back, caught its legs, and went crashing to the floor. Kip flinched, smiled weakly in apology, and picked up the chair.

The man continued staring at him, his mouth a tight white line. He had a large hooked nose and the deep olive skin of an Atashian, though he was beardless, but it was the eyes that captured Kip's attention. The brown eyes were interrupted by a hard circle of royal red in the middle of the iris. Scarlet streaks like sunbeams pierced the rest of the brown irises. Kip put the chair back as he'd found it, looked back to the man, and got nothing, no hint of what he expected.

Kip moved away from the chair. The man stared liquid hatred at him. "Sorry," Kip mumbled, defensive.

"Darks will not speak! Ignorant Tyrean trash."

"Oh, kiss my blubbery butt cheeks," Kip said. Oops.

He squeezed his eyes shut to curse himself, so he didn't even see the blow coming. The fist cracked across his jaw, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, drooling blood.

Kip was slow to anger. Usually. But he popped up to his feet almost as fast as he'd fallen, and the rage was there, everywhere. Everyone he knew was dead. Everything he cared about was gone. He didn't care if the drafter tore him apart.

But as he bounced to his feet, he saw the light in the drafter's eyes. Do it! the man's eyes said. Give me the excuse. I will bounce you out of the Chromeria before you know what hit you.

And like that, Kip's anger dropped into a more familiar channel, and he had control again. There was a footstep in the hall. "Good," Kip said. "We've got something to build on there. A little clumsy for a kiss, but I understand your eagerness. I'm sure with that ugly face you don't get much practice. But I said kiss my butt cheeks. Butt cheeks. Butt cheeks, cheeks." He gestured. "They're different. Try again, this time with feeling."

The drafter's face went from incredulity to rage. He stepped forward and-just as the door opened-buried his fist in Kip's stomach. The drafter was distracted by the opening door and didn't put his full weight into the blow, but Kip doubled up as if it were the hardest blow he'd ever taken. He crumpled and coughed blood, retching.

"Magister Galden, what in Orholam's name is going on here?"

The drafter who'd hit Kip said, "I-I-He defied me!"

"So you struck him? Like the benighted do? Get out. Get out now! I'll deal with you later."

Magister Galden turned and stood over Kip. "I'll remember this, and I'll find you someday when there's-"

"So help me Orholam, if you threaten a student in my presence for your own malfeasance, Jens Galden, I will strip you of your colors and put you off Little Jasper this very hour. Test me. Please."

Magister Galden looked absolutely stricken. Like his life was falling apart without warning.

That embarrassment and pain could be turned to rage, oh so easily.

Sometimes Kip frightened himself. Magister Jens Galden was standing between him and the man who'd come in the door. Kip couldn't see the man, and that man couldn't see Kip. All he had to do was give Jens Galden a big, triumphant smile and leave his stomach open. The magister would lose control-Kip knew all about losing control-and kick him. Kip would leave his stomach open, inviting it. Jens would kick him, and lose everything.

And for what, Kip? For having a temper and being an asshole? Kip hesitated. The man had made him furious, but that was too much.

But if Kip didn't smile, he'd have an enemy. An enemy he could destroy right now.

Wherever that thought was going, he didn't get time to follow it. The moment passed. Jens Galden snarled and wheeled out of the room. Kip was left on the floor, the inside of his lips still lacerated, bleeding and painful. He'd done what was right; maybe he should have done what was smart.

He picked himself up. The man who'd saved him was just poking his head out the door after Magister Galden. He said, "Arien, I need you to conduct the testing."

A woman said, "Luxlord, I'm not a tester."

"And I don't want to wait while a new one is summoned!" he said sharply. "I'm supposed to meet with the Prism in half an hour. We need to get started now."

The luxlord came back into the room. He was a tall man, wearing Ilytian hose and doublet though his skin was olive like Jens Galden's rather than deep black. He was balding; his fringe of dark, wavy hair was streaked with white and brushed out long, halfway down his back. He was somewhere in his fifties, fit, and wearing a heavy black woolen cloak embroidered with gold thread in intricate lattice. His fingers were burdened with wide gold rings and jewels of every color of the spectrum, oddly worn between the knuckles in the middle of his fingers rather than closest to his hand. But Kip was learning to look at people's eyes-and the odd thing about the luxlord's eyes was perhaps that they were normal. They were green; there was no foreign color shot through those eyes.

The luxlord smiled. "No," he said, "I'm not a drafter. The Black usually isn't. My name is Carver Black. Luxlord Black, for most purposes." The name didn't sound Atashian, so maybe he was Ilytian, but Kip guessed the man could just as easily have grown up here or anywhere. Obviously, there was a lot of trade and movement among certain nations. Just not Tyrea.

Kip moved to speak, stopped, pointed to his lips.

"Yes," the luxlord said. "You can speak. We'll begin momentarily, as soon as Arien is ready."

"Um, nice to meet you, Luxlord Black. I'm Kip."

"And you, Magister?" Luxlord Black asked. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Luxlord," she said. She sat at the chair, and the Black stood beside the table. Kip came to stand in front of the table himself.

Magister Arien was short and skinny, nervous around the Black, but happy and cute. She looked up at Kip like she wanted him to succeed. He tried not to let her orange eyes disturb him. "Supplicant," she said, "I'm going to lay out a series of colored tiles, from one tone to another. You will arrange the tiles in order." She smiled suddenly. "We'll start easy."

With that, she opened a bag in her lap, rummaged through the tiles for a bit, and extracted a black tile and a white tile. These she laid at the edges of the table. Then she laid a dozen tiles in various shades of gray in between. Kip quickly moved them into place from lightest to darkest.

Arien said nothing, simply checked the backs of the tiles, made marks on a parchment, and swept the tiles off the table and back into the bag. Then she laid out brown tiles, from a tumbleweed to sepia. This was harder, but Kip swapped tiles quickly once more.

The test was repeated with blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds. When Kip got the reds perfect, Arien pulled out a black bag, checked the backs of the tiles carefully-shielding them from Kip's eyes with a hand as she did so-and lined up another series of reds, except this group had twice as many tiles, so the gradations of color were much much finer. Scarlets, vermilions, strawberry, raspberry, cerise. Kip lined them up and only had trouble with one. The color at the edge of that tile was slightly darker than the color on its face. Finally he put it in its spot by the color on its face.

She flipped the tiles over, and Kip saw that he'd put tile fourteen between tiles nine and ten. Arien winked at him apologetically, as if he'd done better than she expected, despite failing.

"That's not right," Kip said.

"Silence!" Luxlord Black said. "I know you don't know our ways, supplicant, but you will not speak during the testing."

"But it's wrong," Kip said.

"I'm warning you."

Kip raised his hands in silent protest.

Luxlord Black sighed. "Magister?" he asked. "Usually protests have to be lodged after the test results are finalized, but apparently nothing is going to go according to custom today. A judgment, please?"

Arien flipped the tiles back over as Kip had had them lined up. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Luxlord, I'm sorry, I'm not a superchromat. I tried to tell you. I can't tell the difference myself. The key says that the-"

"The key is being challenged." Luxlord Black scratched an eye with one finger. "Half of women superchromats, and I choose… Never you mind. Go get a superchromat, Magister."

"Yes, Luxlord," she said meekly.

She left and the luxlord turned his green eyes to Kip. "Who are you, really? Why are you testing today? Why the special treatment? Where are you from?"

"I'm from Tyrea, sir. King Garadul wiped out my-"

"King? What's this about?"

The door opened and Magister Arien came in, followed by a woman who looked like a scarecrow. She was almost as tall as Luxlord Black, lean as a rail, with faded brown skin, bones sticking out at sharp angles, wrinkled, her kinky hair white and short with only a few wisps of something darker clinging to the tips, the natural mahogany of her eyes eclipsed by orange and red in jagged starbursts through her irises, reaching almost to the outer edge.

"Mistress Kerawon Varidos, I'm sorry to disturb you," Luxlord Black said. He shot a look at Arien.

"She was just in the hall; she asked what I was doing," Arien said defensively.

"Nearly bowled me over. What's this challenge?" the old woman asked. The tiles were lying face up the way Kip had left them. "How did the supplicant order them?"

Silence. The mistress looked from Luxlord Black to Magister Arien. "That is the way he ordered them," Arien said.

"So he's a freak to his gender. Are we done?"

"The key says it should be like this," Magister Arien said. She turned the tiles over and pointed to the numbers on the back.

"You come to me to differentiate the finest red chroma and you think I can't read?" Mistress Varidos asked sharply.

Magister Arien looked horrified. Her mouth opened and shut.

The old scarecrow picked up tile fourteen in her bony claws. She turned it and looked at the edges. "Strip your tester of her position," she said. "This tile has been left in the sunlight. It's been bleached. It's the wrong color. The boy's a superchromat." She turned to Kip. "Congratulations, freak."

"Freak?" Kip said.

"Simple, is he? Too bad."

"What?" Kip asked. He still hadn't figured out what everyone's titles meant, much less what he was supposed to do with all of this.

"Kip, you're forbidden to speak!" Magister Arien said.

"That's an injunction against cheating," Luxlord Black said. "For when hundreds of supplicants are testing in the same room."

"He just came today," Magister Arien told Mistress Varidos. "The Prism himself ordered that he be tested immediately. He doesn't know all the rules."

"Continue the testing," the mistress ordered.

Kip and Magister Arien glanced at Luxlord Black. Kip guessed that, technically, the luxlord was the highest-ranking person in the room, but the man gave the tiniest shrug, as if it wasn't worth fighting over. Go on, he waved.

Magister Arien sat once more, pulled out a set of tongs, and used them to lay out another dozen tiles-except these were all the same deep red. Kip blinked. Magister Arien handed him the tongs. Um, thanks?

Kip reached a hand out for a tile, and then he understood. He could feel the heat radiating off them. He was supposed to see the differences in heat? He stared as if by sheer willpower he could tear the truth out of the tiles.

Time crawled past. Kip started to daydream. He wondered if Liv Danavis was here. Oh, no, he'd have to tell her.

Hi, Liv, great to see you. Your father's dead.

Fantastic. Kip thought about the flames roaring through his town, about that drafter and his apprentice, throwing fireballs. Jumping over the waterfall, running down the waterfall path in the utter darkness, relaxing his eyes so he could actually see better than focusing directly. Oh, Orholam, I am simple.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16