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The assassin felt herself going over the edge and scrambled. She fell-and caught herself on the rail of the balcony. Through the clear yellow of the balcony, she swung face-to-face with Kip. Each balcony had a small gap for rainwater to sluice off so it wouldn't fill with water, and the big woman's face was barely a foot from Kip's own.

Kip looked at her. He knew how this ended. Some skinny woman might be able to pull her weight up, but not a woman this size. Kip was strong-he could lift heavier things than Sanson or even Ram-but when you were really big, heaving your entire weight over a ledge was impossible. And this woman was much bigger than he was. Mistress Helel heaved, and for one terrifying moment Kip thought he was wrong. Her elbows bent and her body lifted. She swung one heavy leg to the side, trying to reach it high enough to reach the rain-gap in the balcony.

Then her strength gave out and she swung back to vertical. She was finished. Kip could see it in her eyes. "Light cannot be chained, Little Guile," she said. "Anat blind you. Mot smite you to the tenth generation. Belphegor blight your sons. Atirat spit on your mother's grave. Ferrilux corrupt your father's-"

Kip punched her through the rain-gap. Her nose crunched in a spray of blood. She must have been expecting the blow, because she tried to snag his fist-but missed.

She fell, flailing all the way, screaming something, but Kip couldn't make out the words. She slammed into a sharp boulder not five paces from the crashing waves of the Cerulean Sea, and her body actually burst asunder, a piece-a leg?-shearing off and flying to splash into the water as the rest of her crunched in one long bloody smudge.

It didn't seem real. Part of Kip knew that could have been him, maybe should have been him, but he was suddenly aware of Liv standing just inside her apartments. "Kip, Kip, we killed her," Liv was saying. Kip was more aware that his balls were aching and he was pretty much naked in front of the only girl he knew, and he was fat and gross and should cover himself immediately.

He'd barely hiked up his pants by the time Liv lurched to the balcony rail and vomited. Kip hated throwing up. He hated himself throwing up, and he hated other people throwing up. But worst, he discovered, as the wind blew across the yellow tower and carried mist through the rain-gap, Kip hated being thrown up on. Little misty wetness stuck to his face and in his open mouth.

He rolled over, spitting and coughing and slapping at his own face to wipe off puke-mist. He rolled to his feet, balls still aching, face scrunched.

"Oh no," Liv said, her face gray and mortified, realizing she'd thrown up on him. She looked from him, to his crotch where his pants were torn, and then to the rocks so far below. She struggled for words and found none.

"You know, I'm glad things aren't awkward between us," Kip said. Did I really just say that? It was like part of him couldn't help being totally inappropriate. He'd just killed someone, and he was so terrified and pained and embarrassed and mortified and thankful to be alive and he didn't even know what all else, he couldn't help himself.

Liv's mouth twitched up for half a moment, and then she leaned back over the rail and vomited again.

Always something to say, never the right thing. Well done, Kip.

Chapter 51

"Midsummer is coming," the White said. "Sun Day."

Gavin stood in front of her on the top of the Chromeria. Together, they were waiting for the sun to rise. Midsummer, as far as Gavin was concerned, was always coming.

"I've started preparations for the Freeing," she said. "Do you think your father will commune this year?"

Gavin snorted. "Not this year. Not ever." He rubbed his temples. He hadn't slept.

"It's not natural," the White said quietly. "I used to marvel at his self-control, you know. Living in that awful room, keeping his mind sharp, keeping the nightmares at bay."

"Nightmares have to keep him at bay."

"I live half in darkness, Gavin," the White said as if he hadn't interrupted. "That's how it feels to live without drafting. But to live fully in darkness? Is that not a denial of Orholam himself? 'They love the darkness, for their deeds are dark, and the light shames them.' "

"I leave the state of my father's soul to my father. Are we not to honor our fathers, rendering obedience unto the authority the Father of All has entrusted to them?"

"You're not just a son, Gavin. You're the Prism. You should honor Orholam by practicing the authority he's given you, not just the power."

"Maybe it's time for you to be Freed," Gavin said bitterly. He had these conversations at least once a year. He was sick of it. The White asked after his father, his father suggested the White go first. Both pressured him to pressure the other.

The White held her hands out, palms up. "If you command it, my Prism, I will join the Freeing. Gladly."

Her words stopped him cold. She meant it.

"I also obey," the White said. "It might surprise you to learn it, Gavin, but I drew the straw to become the White before I began to understand what it was to even be a drafter, much less a Color, much less the White. But perhaps it is not a lesson that can be taught, only learned."

"What are you talking about?" Gavin asked.

"Do you know why faith is harder for us, my Lord Prism?" The White grinned. Sometimes despite her years, she seemed a mischievous girl.

"Because we know Orholam sleeps a hundred years for every day he wakes?" Gavin asked. He was tired, and not just from the insomnia.

She refused the bait. "Because we know ourselves. Because others obey us as though we were gods, and we know we're not. We see the fragility of our own power, and through it we see the fragility of every other link. What if the Spectrum suddenly refused my orders? Not hard to imagine, when you consider the scheming and lust for power it takes to become a Color. What if a general suddenly refuses his satrap's orders? What if a son refuses his father's orders? What if that first link in the Great Chain of being-Orholam Himself-is as empty as every other link before him? Seeing the weakness of each link, we think the Great Chain itself is fragile: surely at any moment it will burst if we don't do everything in our power to hold it together."

Gavin swallowed involuntarily. He'd never really universalized the thought as she was doing, but he always thought his whole life was like that. His deceptions, his authority, his imprisoned brother, his relationships. A chain of wet paper, drooping under its own sodden weight. A chain to which he added new weight every day.

"Here's what I've learned," the White said. "Orholam doesn't need me. Oh, I can do good work for him, work that pleases him, and if I foul it, others will suffer. You see, what I do still matters, but in the end, Orholam's will prevails. So I think I still have work to do. I see unfinished business everywhere I look. But if you tell me that I should be Freed this Midsummer's, I will do so gladly, not because I have faith in you, Gavin-though I do, more than you know-but because I have faith in Orholam."

Gavin looked at her like she was a visitor from the moon. "That was very… metaphysical. Can we talk about the Freeing now?"

She laughed. "Here's the thing, Gavin. You remember everything. I know you do. You think I'm crazy now, but you'll remember this, and someday it might make a difference. And with that, I can be content."

Madwoman or saint-but then, Gavin didn't think there was any difference.

"I'm going to Garriston," he said.

She folded her hands in her lap and turned toward the rising light.

"Let me explain," Gavin rushed to say. Then he did, ignoring the beauty of the sunrise. Ten minutes later, he was almost finished when the White raised a finger. She held her breath, then sighed as the sun itself mastered the horizon. "Do you ever watch for the green flash?"

"Sometimes," Gavin said. He knew people who swore they'd seen it, though no one could explain what it was or why it happened, and he knew others who swore it was a myth.

"I think of it as Orholam's wink," the White said.

Is everything about Orholam with her? Maybe she is fading.

"You've seen it?" Gavin asked.

"Twice. The first time was… fifty-nine years ago now? No, sixty. It was the night I met Ulbear." Gavin had to reach to remember the name. Oh, Ulbear Rathcore, the White's husband and quite a famous man in his day. Dead now twenty years. "I was at a party, quite disgusted with the drunk young gentleman who'd escorted me there and most certainly wasn't going to be escorting me home. I went outside to get some air. Watched the sun set, saw the green flash, and was so excited I jumped. Unfortunately this very tall fellow was leaning over me to grab his wineglass that he'd left on the balcony, and I broke his nose with the back of my head."

"You met Ulbear Rathcore by breaking his nose?"

"The woman he was escorting that night was none too pleased. She was beautiful, graceful, prettier than I was by half, and somehow she couldn't compete with little clumsy me. Though I can't imagine she would have been happy if she'd married Ulbear, your grandmother didn't forgive me for two years."

"My grandmother?"

"If I hadn't seen the green flash at that instant, your grandmother would have married Ulbear, and you wouldn't be here now, Gavin." The White laughed. "See, you never know what you'll learn when you let old women prattle."

Gavin was left speechless.

"You can go to Garriston, of course, Gavin, but no one else can perform the Freeing, and it can be done at no other time. So there's only one option: I'll send all those to be Freed to Garriston. I'll have to send our fastest ships to intercept theirs so they can arrive in time."

"We're talking about war," Gavin said.

"And?"

"What do you mean 'and'?" he demanded. "I'm not going to have time to throw parties and set off fireworks and give speeches."

"The list I have so far is only perhaps a hundred and fifty drafters. Not a large flight this year. A good proportion of those definitely won't make it to next year. You want another eighty or ninety color wights?"

"Of course not."

"The parties are nice, Gavin, but understand what you are. This is the flip side of your first purpose." She'd figured out that he'd sworn to wipe out color wights because of Sevastian. Like everything she learned, she used it to control him. "Even if you don't believe the Prism is Orholam's gift to mankind, they do. The minutes each drafter spends with you being Freed are the holiest moments of her life. You can take that away, but it would be the worst thing you could do. I for one can forgive you much, but I'd never forgive you that."

That stung.

"Now, tell me how you dropped off Karris in Tyrea, killed a giist, and brought back a son, all within a few days. The trip alone should have taken you two weeks."

Well that was quick. He'd known she would learn of the skimmer and the condor as soon as he'd shown Karris, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. Maybe he was impulsive. So he told her about the skimmer and the condor. Her eyes lit up. "That would be something to see, Gavin. Flying! And the speed! I suppose you'll want to go back to Garriston the same way?"

"Yes, and I'm taking Kip with me."

Again she surprised him and didn't protest. "Good," she said. "It will be good for you to learn about a father's love."

Because I sure as the evernight didn't learn about that from my own father. Then Gavin realized that was exactly what she meant, and he bristled. But there was no point fighting over his father again.

"So what was the second time?" he asked instead.

"Second time?"

"The second time you saw the green flash. The second time Orholam winked." He kept the sarcasm out of his voice. Mostly.

She smiled. "I look forward to the day when I tell you that, my Lord Prism, but that day is not today." Then her smile passed. "When you return, we need to talk about Kip's testing."

"You noticed the wall crystals. I thought I stopped it in time."

"Old? Yes. Addled? Not yet."

"You want to hear me admit it? Kip nearly broke the test," Gavin said. "Like Dazen did."

"Or worse, passed it," the White said.

Chapter 52

Karris knew she was even deeper in trouble than she'd feared within five minutes of being captured. King Garadul's Mirrormen walked her at gunpoint over to a wagon. They didn't bind her hands, which she thought was curious and gave her a momentary hope. Then the Mirrormen handed her off to half a dozen drafters, all women. Two Mirrormen stayed, their pistols leveled at her head, barely blinking.

The women-two reds, a green, a blue, and a super-stripped her naked and searched her and her clothes, quickly finding her eye caps. The two Mirrormen barely even glanced at her body, and though men around the camp turned to see whatever they could between all the drafters surrounding her, there wasn't a single ribald comment.

Disciplined. Damn it.

Crossing her arms over her breasts, Karris looked down, feigning embarrassment. Well, maybe not completely feigning.

"Eyes up!" one of the reds commanded.

Karris looked up. They wanted to see her eyes so they would know as soon as she tried to draft. Smart too, damn it twice.

In rapid order, they went through all her clothing, scrunching every seam to look for hidden pockets. Then they went through her bag, one carefully cataloguing all the items in a codex. After they'd found everything, Karris hoped they'd give her back her clothes.

No such luck. Instead, they opened the door of the wagon and threw a violet dress and shift inside.

"Get in," the same red who'd spoken before said.

Karris got in and the door slammed behind her. She heard a bar being lowered and chains pulled into place. The inside of the wagon was fairly spacious. There was a pallet to sleep on, a chamber pot, a cup of water, several blankets and pillows-all violet, the deepest into the blue spectrum they could find. And from the noxious smell, all freshly painted. The windows were fitted with bars and violet glass, draped on the outside with violet cloth. Apparently they were taking her drafting seriously, and from their study of her eyes and the mag torches, they knew she could draft green and red. Rather than risk a color that was between her colors, they'd picked the one farthest to the end of the spectrum she didn't draft.

It was a strange kindness. They could have just blindfolded her, of course, but blindfolds slip. But most captors would have painted the wagon black and made her live in darkness. This was just as effective, but a lot more work. If a drafter couldn't see her color, or didn't have lenses and white light, she couldn't draft. Karris was about as close to helpless as she got. She hated the feeling with a passion.

She threw on the slip and the shapeless violet dress, and immediately scratched the paint. It had been heat-dried by a sub-red. She would be able to chip it eventually, but with the only light coming in through the violet curtains and violet glass, it wasn't going to matter anyway. Still, she tried. She couldn't help herself. Under the layer of violet paint was a layer of black. Under that, the wood was a dark mahogany. No luck.

The wagon began rolling within minutes.

That night, after she was fed a hunk of black bread and given water in a blackened iron cup, two drafters came in, their skin already full of red and blue luxin respectively. Behind them came, of all things, a tailor. She was a tiny woman who barely came up to Karris's shoulder. She took Karris's measurements rapidly, never writing them down, just committing them to memory. Then she stared at Karris's body for a long time, studying her like a farmer studying a rocky sidehill that he needed to plow. She double-checked her measurement of Karris's hips, and then left without a word.

Over the next five days, Karris learned little. Apparently her wagon was close to the cooking wagons, because all she heard all day was the rattle of pots at every bump in the road. The shadowy figures of horsemen, maybe Mirrormen, sometimes passed close enough to her covered windows for her to see their silhouettes. If they spoke, though, she could never make out the words. At night, she was given food in a blackened iron bowl, with a blackened iron spoon and black bread and water, never wine-damn them, they even thought of the red of wine. A Mirrorman accompanied by a drafter took her chamber pot, bowl, spoon, and cup each night after sunset. When she kept the spoon one night, hiding it under a pillow, they didn't say a word. Neither did they give her water the next day. When she surrendered the spoon, she was given water again.

The boredom was the worst. There were only so many push-ups you could do in a day, and anything more strenuous was impossible. There were no musical instruments, no books, and certainly no weapons or drafting to practice.

On the sixth night, two blues came in. "Choose a position that's comfortable," one of them said. Karris sat on her little pallet, hands folded in her lap, ankles crossed, and they bound her arms and legs in about five times the amount of luxin necessary. Then they put violet spectacles over her eyes and left.

King Garadul entered the wagon, carrying a folding camp chair. He wore a loose black shirt over his shirt, which Karris could barely see, and voluminous black pants over his pants. Karris understood being careful around her, but this was ridiculous. The king settled into the camp chair. He stared at her wordlessly.

"I don't suppose you remember me," he said. "I met you once, before the war. Of course, I was just a boy, three years younger than you, and you were already head over heels for… well, one of the Guile boys, I can't remember which. Maybe you can't either. There seemed to be some confusion for a time, wasn't there?"

"You're a real charmer, aren't you?" Karris asked.

"You might be surprised," he said. He shook his head. "I always thought you were a beautiful girl, but the stories of you took on a life of their own. A tragic love triangle between the two most powerful men in the world sort of demands a beautiful girl, doesn't it? I mean, otherwise, why would two men tear the world apart? For her insights about history? Her witty repartee? No. You were a pretty girl made beautiful by the bards' need to make some sense of what you wrought. Don't get me wrong," he said, "I was so in love with you it kept me up nights. You were my first great unrequited love."

"I'm sure you've had many. Or do women pretend to find you attractive, now that you're king?" Karris asked.

Temper, Karris, temper. But the truth was, it wasn't the red that made her say that. She'd always hated to perform for others, to do just what they wanted.

He scowled. "The shrewish tongue somehow was omitted from the panegyrics. Or is that a new addition?"

"I feel a bit freer to speak my mind these days. I already destroyed the world, what's one man's ego?" Karris said.

"Karris, I was on my way to pay you a compliment before you made us descend to this unpleasantness."

"Oh, dear. Please do go on then, there's nothing that would mean more to me than to hear praises from the Butcher of Rekton."

He rubbed his palms together thoughtfully. "I'm sorry you had to see that, Karris." He kept using her name. She didn't like it. "I hope you know I took no joy in what I ordered there, but I also hope you understand that that small monstrosity will forestall larger ones in the future. You're familiar with the manuscript called The Counselor to Kings?"

"Yes," Karris said. "Loathsome advice and cruelty that not even he had the stomach to countenance, when he himself ruled." The Counselor asked whether it was better for a ruler to be loved or feared. Both was best, he decided, but if a ruler had to choose, he should always choose to be feared.

"His advice was good. He was simply personally weak. I don't hold that against him. The fact is, Karris, when kings aren't feared, they end up having to instill fear eventually, at grievous prices. That's what happened at Ru. That's what happened at Garriston. Those men you loved-or at least bedded-learned the lesson eventually, but because they learned it late, what they had to do was far worse than destroying one little village. So tell me, how can you hold the death of a thousand against me, but not the death of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, against them?"

Karris hadn't been allowed to see the royal steps at Ru, stained with the blood and shit of hundreds murdered coldly one at a time and thrown down the steps to the gaping, horrified crowds below. She'd been kept from going to Garriston even after the war, where tens of thousands-they didn't even know how many-had perished in the red luxin fires of the besieged city. That was Gavin's and Dazen's doing. Somehow, it had never seemed possible that men she knew so well would have done such things. Men she thought she knew so well.

"The people of this land are my people. I am no mere satrap, no guardian of some other man's land; I am king. These people belong to me. To kill a thousand of my own was to cut a chunk out of my own flesh. But cancers have to be cut out. I am this land. My people work this land and bring forth crops at my good pleasure. I protect them and provide for them, and they in turn must render to me of their crops and of their sons. Those who would not are rebels, traitors, thieves, and heretics, apostates. They defy the holy compact. To defy me is to defy the gods' order. I had to do this because my father wouldn't. If he had hanged half a dozen mayors when they first defied him and refused to send levies, that thousand would be alive now. He was weak and wanted to be loved. No one may acknowledge it during my life, but by killing that thousand in Rekton, I saved many more. This is what it is to be a king."

"You're awfully passionate in your defense of decapitating babies and stacking their heads." The gods' order, not Orholam's?

"Karris, you're making me understand why men beat their wives." King Garadul rubbed his black beard, but made no move to strike her. "By making the display so awful, I ensured it would be seared into every mind that saw it. Do you think the dead care what happened to their bodies? Better that their example save the living than that I bury them all in a hole and my descendants have to kill their descendants. That monument will stay for a dozen generations. That is the legacy I will leave to my children's children, a secure rule, without the need to commit such massacres themselves. And the reason I tell you, Karris, is that I had hoped you of all people might understand. You're a woman now, not some frightened little girl surrounded by great men. You're a woman who's seen great men and terrible deeds. I had hoped you might understand the burdens of greatness. At least a little. Perhaps I give you too much credit."

Karris swallowed, trembling with rage and maybe a little fear. There was a sick logic to everything he said, but she had seen the bodies. The blood. The piled-up heads.

"As I wanted to say earlier," King Garadul said. He took a deep breath, clearly pushing away his frustration, and continued. "You were a very pretty girl, but only pretty, despite the tales. But you, to my great delight and surprise, are one of the few women I've ever seen who's gotten more beautiful as you've aged. You look better at thirty than you did at twenty, and I wouldn't be surprised if you look better at forty than you do now. Of course, I'm sure it helps that you haven't squeezed six or ten brats out of your crotch. Most pretty girls do manage to find a husband before they get so old, but let's not look a gift horse in the mouth."

Real charmer. What was it with King Garadul, did he just say everything that popped into his idiot head?

"Yours is, indeed, a face to inspire poets. This, however"-he gestured to her vaguely, she wasn't sure what he meant-"this must change. You have shoulders like a man." The bastard! How did he know how much she hated her shoulders? Whenever the fashions were such that she could hide her shoulders, they showed off her upper arms, or vice versa. And he'd said exactly what she said to herself at least once a week: I have shoulders like a man. But the king wasn't done. "Your ass looks like a ten-year-old boy's. Maybe it's that dress. We'll hope so. And your breasts. Your poor magnificent breasts. Where have they gone? They were bigger when you were fifteen! Your training ends now. I'll allow you to resume dancing and riding when you no longer resemble a starved Dark Forest pygmy."

"I won't be here that long," Karris said. She frowned. Had she just admitted she looked like a starved pygmy?

"Karris, my dear. I've waited for you for fifteen years. And whether or not you know it, you've been waiting for me, too. You and I don't settle for second best. Why else would you still be unmarried? So we can wait a few months. I'll come visit you when your dress is done." He glanced around. "Oh, and I noticed you've nothing in here to entertain you. It must get boring. It's good for a woman to excel in the pleasant arts. I'll have my mother's psantria brought in for you. That's what you play, isn't it?" He smiled and went out.

The worst part of it was that Karris did feel thankful. A little. The bastard.

Chapter 53

Kip and Liv went straight to the Blackguards watching the lift. "We need to see the Prism," Liv said.

"Who're you?" the man asked. He was short, Parian of course, and built like a cornerstone. He looked at Kip. "Oh, are you the Prism's bas-" He coughed. "Nephew."

"Yes, I'm his bastard," Kip said angrily. "We need to see him now."

The Blackguard looked over at his compatriot, a man just as muscular, but toweringly tall. "We've had no orders on how the Prism wants his… nephew treated," the man said.

"He just went to sleep not twenty minutes ago," the other said. "After being up all night."

"It's an emergency," Liv said.

They seemed unmoved, a little of a who-the-hell-is-this-girl creeping into their faces.

"Someone just tried to kill me," Kip said.

"Stump, get the commander," the tall one said. Stump? The short Blackguard's name was actually Stump? Because the Blackguards were both Parian, who traditionally had descriptive names like Ironfist, Kip had no idea if that was a nickname or really his name.

"He took third watch last night," Stump said, his mouth twisting.

"Stump." Pulling rank.

"Awright, awright. I'm going."

Stump left and the taller Blackguard turned and rapped on the door, three times, pause, two times. Then, after five seconds, he repeated it.

A room slave opened the door almost before the Blackguard finished knocking. A pretty woman with the unsettlingly pale skin and red hair of a Blood Forester, she was fully dressed and alert despite the early hour and the darkness of the chamber behind her.

"Marissia," Liv said. "So good to see you again." Her voice didn't sound totally sincere.

The slave appeared none too pleased to see Liv. Kip wondered why Liv had used the slave's name, then. He thought you were only supposed to do that with slaves with whom you were friendly.

From deep in the chamber, they heard Gavin's voice, deep and scratchy from just waking, "Ummgh, give me a-" Whatever else he said, it was lost in bass and pillows. A moment later, all the windows banged open and light streamed in from all sides, nearly blinding everyone, and eliciting a loud groan from the Prism on his bed.

"That's brilliant magic!" Liv said. "Look at that, Kip!" She pointed at a dark purplish-black strip of glass around the glass walls that encircled the whole chamber.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16