“Is it really that bad?” she asked. No, T, he’s probably puking for fun.
“It may be worse,” he said, wiping his mouth. “My grandfather believed I knew where the cards were all along, and he’s threatened to kill me if I don’t turn them over. This? There’s no way he’ll believe this.”
“What, uh, what’s this other box?”
Kip sighed. “That’s my grandfather’s favorite deck. My father must have stolen them to spite him. They’re worth a fortune, of course. But one-of-a-kind, of course, so I can’t sell them, can’t hide them, can’t give them back without him knowing that I must have found these others.”
“Maybe this would make a good peace offering?”
Kip considered it, but then shook his head. “I don’t know why my father stole the cards. Maybe he has some purpose for them. When he comes back, I don’t want to have failed him doubly.”
“Kip,” Teia said gently, “you really think he’s coming back?”
“Yes!” he barked. “Yes,” he said more quietly. He winced and squinted. He seemed woozy, nauseated.
Teia went over and turned off all the lights except for the soothing blue.
“Thanks.”
“You’re still my partner, Kip. They haven’t taken that away. Not yet. Now, let’s clean this up.”
They began picking up the cards, and it was good.
Moments of companionable silence passed as they simply worked together. With the cards and the cloak and everything she didn’t understand of what was happening, Teia found herself saying, “I, I thought you were dead.”
Kip looked very tired. “I think… I think I was.”
“That would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me.” She’d wanted to say losing you would have been the worst thing that ever happened, but it was too much. Kip could say whatever popped into his head and get away with it, somehow. She couldn’t.
“I promise to die in some way that’s convenient and non-messy,” Kip said.
“That’s not what I’m—”
“I’m joking.”
“Oh.”
He took a deep breath. “Thank you, Teia. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to find me destroying priceless artifacts.”
She laughed. Ripples of color went scintillating down her cloak. Whoa, what the hell?
“You know, I think I like that cloak on you,” Kip said. “Makes you a lot easier to read.”
She scowled, but the scowl wasn’t reflected in the cloak, so he could see she was faking, dammit. She shut her eyes and concentrated.
“Ooh, nice,” Kip said. “But I don’t think I can look at that cloak for long right now.” He was wincing and rubbing his temples.
She looked. The cloak was a drab, boring gray. It looked exactly like a normal Blackguard inductee’s cloak. “Kip, this is amazing!” It reacted directly to her will. She didn’t think the shimmercloaks changed their mundane form. Those only did one thing. This, this was something far more.
He grumbled something, but before she could ask him to repeat himself, Karris White Oak opened the door.
She didn’t look particularly pleased to see either of them. Nor was she pleased to see the mess of the punching bag down and sawdust spilled everywhere. She strode in purposefully, glanced at Teia, dismissed her.
“You did this, Kip?” she asked, meaning knocking the bag down.
He nodded, hands in his pockets. He also had a card box in each pocket.
“Show me your hands,” Karris demanded.
Kip pulled his hands out, carefully palm down, and Karris examined—his hands. Teia blew out a relieved breath. She glanced at her cloak. It was staying gray, like she wanted it to. Thank Orholam for that.
“Beat your own knuckles bloody, while training. Now your hands will be no good for days as you heal, and you’ll miss training. Does that strike you as particularly productive?” Karris asked.
“Learning to fight through pain is good training, yes,” Kip said. “And I won’t miss anything.”
Teia almost gasped at his tone, and Karris’s lips thinned. She was still holding Kip’s fist in her hand, and Teia wondered if she was thinking how fast she could turn her hold into an arm bar or a wrist lock and kick Kip’s defiant ass. Instead she turned his right arm over and looked at his elbow. Then she pushed up his sleeve and looked at his shoulder. She found the wound there.
“So you’ve discovered venting,” she said.
“Venting?” Kip asked.
“Shooting luxin is one way to make your punches or kicks faster.”
“Streaming? You already knew about that?” Kip asked.
“Why are you blinking? Do you have a hangover, Kip? Are you lightsick?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
She sighed. “We wait until after final vows to teach it. Your whole squad’s using this?”
Neither Teia nor Kip answered.
“Figures,” Karris said. “It’s a good way for people to burn through their halo in a couple years. And so difficult to use well that most Blackguards use it less than once a year.”
“A mistake,” Kip said. “Would you have us only shoot muskets once a year, because we use them so rarely in actual combat? The lack of practice reinforces—”
He saw the look on Karris’s face and finally shut up.
“So the bag tore off its hanger,” Karris said. “And it split open?”
Teia saw the problem. If the bag had torn off its leather hanger, that would have taken care of the force of a mighty punch. Or if it had ripped open at its loose thread, how would it then have torn off its hanger?
“I’m Guile,” Kip said, still hostile. It was, despite the incredible rudeness, kind of a brilliant response. ‘I’m Guile’ meaning that he was so far outside the norm that you could expect things far outside the norm to happen regularly around him, or ‘I’m Guile’ meaning I’m a cheater, and go to hell if you don’t like it?
Surprisingly enough, Karris didn’t slap Kip’s silly head off. And this was a woman who’d been famous for her temper. It seemed she was changing, mellowing with age. Of course, the open secret that the White had forbidden her to draft might have had a little to do with it, too. As a red/green, it might have been the best thing anyone could have done to her.
Karris’s face went still, her eyes hooded. “Don’t forget, Kip, I’m Guile now, too.”
Oh. So maybe not mellowing with age.
The chagrin on Kip’s face was priceless. Orholam’s bony knuckles, but Teia kind of wanted to give a cheer for her handler.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kip said.
Before Karris could say any more, though, the door creaked open once more. They all turned, but Teia was watching Karris, and she saw the woman’s face drain of color.
“Samite!” she said. “What are you doing down here?”
“The White said you might be here.”
“Sami, what happened to you?”
Teia saw the squat Blackguard give an apologetic grin. Her left hand was wrapped in a thick bandage that despite its thickness couldn’t hide that what was bandaged was smaller than a full hand.
“Retirement,” Samite said with forced cheeriness. “Or a post training the scrubs and the nunks here.” She lifted her chin at Kip and Teia.
Karris had already covered the distance to her friend. She lifted her friend’s arm carefully. Samite winced. “Samite. What happened?”
Samite shrugged. “The promachos has been sending out squads to search for all the bane.”
“Sure, sure,” Karris said.
“Mine went after the yellow. Found it and destroyed it. Not many wights there, but when yellows go wight, they figure out how to draft a solid yellow. All of them figure it out, it seems. Hell of a fight. Half the squad was new kids, and I was the only casualty. Embarrassing, frankly.”
Karris embraced her friend. Samite stood stoic for a moment, but then hugged Karris back.
“Guess this is what I get for that other thing. With Lady
Guile. The last Lady Guile, I mean. Felia.”
“No, no, no, don’t talk like that.”
Teia was suddenly embarrassed at seeing this intimate expression between friends—and also intensely curious, though she could tell that this was a secret she wasn’t going to be learning.
Samite pushed back from Karris and looked at the heavy bag. “Kip, you do this?”
He nodded.
Samite continued, “Your father would be proud. He told me once to give you a hard time if you hadn’t knocked the bag open by Sun Day.”
Which did two things to Teia. First, she was deeply ashamed that she’d been part of the prank to keep that stitch reinforced and the thread loose. Second, it made her realize that Gavin had meant Kip to get those cards if he didn’t come back.
“But, I, uh, I’m not here about that, and I’m sorry to interrupt your training of these two, Lady Guile.” Samite took a deep breath. She glanced at Kip and Teia and shrugged. “It’s for your ears, but I guess they’ll know soon enough. Lady Guile, I wouldn’t have come to interrupt you for just… my… news. I came here to give you warning.”
“Warning?” Karris asked.
Teia was looking at Kip. He blanched. Teia had no idea what it was, but Kip obviously already knew what Samite was going to say.
“When we Blackguards landed on Big Jasper, there was another ship at the docks. A young lord was debarking. He was quite… willful, trying to make his way through the pilgrimage crowds. He said his name was Zymun.”
Kip looked ill again, but in a very different way.
Karris looked at her blankly. “And…?”
“Karris,” Samite said, “Zymun says he’s your son. The White wishes you to report to her, immediately.”
Chapter 77
Her son. Here.
Karris felt like she was watching her own body move from hall to hall to lift. She passed the Blackguard station and couldn’t even identify the men on duty. Her chest was constricted; it was hard to breathe. She could only focus on one thing at a time. Step, step, woman, dammit. Now knock. Her son.
Dear Orholam, it was all coming down.
Knock, damn you.
She lifted a hand and knocked on the White’s door.
The oddest thing happened with that simple, irrevocable action: she felt relief. It was all coming down, and somehow, no matter what that cost, no matter what came next, the lies were finished.
The Blackguards at the door, Gill and Gavin Greyling, looked at each other over her head. “Lady Guile?” Gill asked. He opened the door for her.
“Thank you.” She walked in, back straight, features clear. She had been taught by the best; she wasn’t going to disgrace them now. Here at the end of all things, she would be brave, and stoic, and take her punishment like a lady and a Blackguard.
The White was in her wheeled chair, and she looked stronger than she had in years. She saw Karris and said, “Leave us.” Her attendants and secretaries and Blackguards left immediately; there was a steel in her voice that brooked no argument or delay.
When the room was empty, she studied Karris.
Karris moved to speak, but the White lifted a finger, silencing her, and studied her more.
Then, abruptly, the White said, “Look at this invention. One of the young Blackguard inductees, Ben-hadad, made it for me. At first I didn’t think he quite realized what he’d stumbled upon, but now I’m pretty certain he does.”
She put her hand down on the arm of her chair, and the barest tendril of blue luxin moved down the rice-paper-thin skin of her arm—and the chair turned, and then rolled out from behind her desk as if a ghost had turned and pushed it.
“What the h—? Your pardon, High Mistress,” Karris said. “I’ve never seen such a thing. How…?”
“Gears and pulleys, he told me. All made of luxin. His trick was to completely encapsulate some open luxin within a couple of the belts, he said. It being open, I can push it with Will alone. Because it’s encapsulated, it doesn’t evaporate. Were I younger, I’d be flipping this chair over right now to understand exactly what he’s done. It can’t be as simple as he’s said, but if it is, or if it’s even close…
“We each tend to think of our time as the end product of all that has come before, which is true, but we like to believe our time is therefore the pinnacle, rather than another pearl on the string. This invention may remake a thousand things, or it may remake only one or two, depending on how efficient it can be made, and over what distances and for how long it can operate, and across what color bands. I may be dying just before the most interesting time in history. I may miss out on a revolution by this much. It’s either intolerable, or very hopeful. I can’t decide which.”
“Come now,” Karris said, “you’re going to live forever.”
“I’ll be dead by Sun Day,” the White said.
Steel bands crushed Karris’s chest. “You mean Sun Day next, surely,” she said, meaning more than a year away.
“I said what I meant.” The way the White said it, it was obvious she meant the Sun Day three days away. “And not another word about that. I’ve been gifted with a long life and a certainty about the date of my passing. Debate about a foregone conclusion is a waste of the little time I have left.”
Karris swallowed the dozen contentions warring to get out of her throat. Not only, if she was honest with herself, to try to convince the White and herself that the White would be around for a long time yet, but also to keep her from bringing up worse things. Sitting in the judgment seat beneath an authority you can’t deny is no place of comfort.
“It is almost sunset,” the White said. “Push my chair to your balcony, would you? I could Will myself there now, I suppose, but I tire.”
So Karris pushed her down the hall to her and Gavin’s rooms. And out to the balcony. The Blackguards insisted on being in the room, at least, with their recent bad experiences with balconies and assassins.
Karris found a heavy cloak for herself and some blankets for the White.
“Take my hand, dear,” the White said.
They watched the sun set together. And in flares of pink and orange and every red, the sun went down to the sea, leaving flaming clouds as a promise of its return. And in the beauty of the sun and sea and clouds and the iron grip of a frail hand that had protected and guided her in ways her own mother never had, Karris found her cheeks damp with tears for all the woundedness in the world. And for her own.
“Look upon the city, and tell me what you see,” the White said.
With the sun so close to the horizon, the city was being swallowed in soft shadows, rising from the ground up. The gleaming domes of every possible color and metal and design shone bright against the whitewashed walls, and the Thousand Stars sparkled, beaming their rays to and fro in their districts. The seven towers of the Chromeria were stunning in this light, too, reaching like longing hands toward the heavens. “I see the most beautiful city in the world,” Karris said. “I see a treasure worth protecting.”
“The Thousand Stars, odd, aren’t they?”
Karris shrugged. They were wonders; their oddness was undeniable, but also unquestionable.
“A vast expense to build such towers, merely to bring drafters a few extra minutes of light each morning and night, don’t you think?”
They were, of course, used for many other things than that: ceremonial, celebratory, practical, but the White knew all that. She meant something else.
Karris turned a questioning glance to the White, but the old woman had turned away from the city to look over the sea as the disk of the sun disappeared.
“Will you tell me about the second time you saw the green flash?” she asked the White.
“The second?! Did I tell you about the first?” the White asked, still looking over the sea. But the sun was fully down; there would be no green flash tonight.
“Gavin told me about the first. Said you saw it at a party and were so excited you jumped—and broke your future husband’s n
ose as he leaned past you for his wineglass.”
The White’s face broke into a grin at the memory, but she didn’t turn from the sea. “You know, he snored after that. Nose didn’t heal right. I knew I couldn’t really complain about it, but I was young, and I did.” Her smile was tugged down by that old sin, but rebounded. “I miss him so much. He told me I should remarry when he was gone. He never wanted me to be lonely, but I couldn’t find a man who compared to him. Problem with being exceptional, as you know. Perhaps great men are content with marrying a woman who is not their equal, but we great women… Our equals are rare enough in the first place, and then most of those we do find have married twits.”
“We’re victims of our own refined tastes?” Karris asked.
“If Gavin Guile is a refined taste. He’s a rare one, that’s for sure.”
Karris couldn’t talk about Gavin now. Couldn’t begin to touch the well of sorrow that was beginning to turn to rage: how dare he leave her here, alone, to face all this? And the guilt that followed the rage: where was he? What was he suffering? He wouldn’t be away if he could help it, she knew.
She hoped she knew.
“Look now,” the White said. The shadows like a rising tide had swallowed the walls of Big Jasper and rolled upward constantly, lights winking out around the curvature of the land until only the tallest buildings and the Thousand Stars were alight. Then only the Thousand Stars. They burned day into night.
It had been a long, long time since Karris had really looked.
“We drafters are those Thousand Stars, Karris. We have been turned to a hundred purposes, but at heart we have only one: to bring the light into darkness. Each high-set mirror is special indeed, brilliantly crafted, magically made, but in the end elevated not because of its innate specialness but because only by being set high can it serve to bring light where there is darkness. We are elevated to serve.”
For a time, they watched the light reflected from those many mirrors play over Big Jasper. Then the White said, “The second time I saw the green flash, what I call Orholam’s wink, was one of the hardest days of my tenure as White. I was on one of the lower balconies here, thinking about something I’d seen that had terrified me. I thought that if I did the wrong thing, the world would be plunged back into a war that it seemed had just ended. I thought that if I didn’t do something, though, a blacker fate might befall than even that.”