The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  Only then did the old man move. He came forward, and he knelt beside her. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that you have been very much misled.”

  She expelled a breath, so hopelessly that she clearly wished it were her last.

  “Shh, shh,” he said, brushing back her hair behind her ear as if soothing a child. “Very much misled about the extent of your failures, and even more so about your own worth, Karris Agapêtê. Be still, child. Be still. For about this at least you are right: your son isn’t dead, only sleeping.”

  Karris took a sharp breath, and Gill’s hand convulsed on his spear. What new insult was this? Was the old man mocking her?

  But Karris lifted her head, and the hope in her voice as she spoke to the old man hurt Gill most of all. “Then you’ll wake him?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said, slinging his pack around and pulling out his little cups, and filling them with his dark, steaming brew. “What do you think kopi is for?”

  His eyes twinkled as with many lights. And as he gently poured the drink into Kip’s mouth, suddenly the night lit with incandescence above them all.

  Every eye turned to the Prism’s Tower as a great white light from the east hit it, unimaginably pure and bright.

  The whole tower lit with color, and then, too, did all the other towers of the Chromeria in turn as every one of the Thousand Stars flared to life throughout Big Jasper—radiating first with white light, then with every color under the sun.

  Then, under the control of some masterful hand on the mirror array, the night filled with light. Directed by some great intelligence that could hold a hundred details at once, the Thousand Stars blossomed and turned—here shooting red source, here focused tight and hot enough to burn some unseen enemy, here giving blue or green, here flooding the enemy with light they couldn’t use, and in fifty other places seeking out friendly drafters to give them exactly what light they needed.

  Faces turned heavenward, seeing hope brought to their despair and light brought into their darkness. Cheers broke out throughout the square and throughout Big and Little Jasper.

  But Gill, after checking for any immediate threat from the outpouring of magic and seeing none, saw little more of it. He saw only his mistress’s face, and she saw only Kip—and her son suddenly took a deep breath, and sat up, eyes opening.

  Only as Kip breathed out, smiling as if waking from a pleasant dream, did Gill realize that the old kopi seller had disappeared.

  Chapter 139

  “This here is the point where you make a decision,” Orholam said.

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Dazen said. “I thought that’s what I just did.” He was an old cloak drenched in the rain and now wrung out, and there was nothing he wanted so much as to hang up in the air to dry a bit. He’d just given father everything the old cancer had wanted for more than forty years. Worst, he’d given father vindication. It made Dazen’s heart hurt. Could he not just curl up in a corner for the next decade or two?

  Orholam said, “You came all this way for one reason. Did you forget it already?”

  To kill You? Oh, not that. “To save Karris?” Dazen asked.

  “You still want to?”

  “What are you talking about? She’s on the other side of the world. Me drafting anything is impossible at this point. Like, I thought it was impossible before, but now? It’s really, really not happening.”

  “A man is more than his magic, Promachos.”

  Wow, that sounded like a deep lesson, but c’mon…“What can I do? You got another ship and crew tucked away inside the reef somewhere I didn’t notice? What’s the rush now? It’ll take me weeks or even months to get back. Everything will be over by then. There’s no way I can get back in time to help.”

  “Time. Psh,” Orholam said.

  “Easy for You to say.”

  “What about your glider? What’d you call it, ‘the condor’?”

  “That would be handy. You know, if I hadn’t destroyed it in Tyrea, hundreds of leagues from here. You gonna make me a new one?”

  “Right now I prefer making things new to making new things.”

  “You are really hard to understand sometimes,” Dazen said. “It’s lost. Broken. I destroyed it so no one could learn its secrets. And I couldn’t fix it anyway, now.”

  “Like I said, fixing is My specialty,” Orholam said. “You want to fly with Me?”

  Dazen said nothing for a moment. “You’re serious.”

  “I seem to recall you rather enjoy it.”

  “Flying? What?!” Dazen’s exasperation was as unbounded as the night sky.

  “That vexation you’re feeling?” Orholam said. “Been feeling that for you. For years.”

  This did not make Dazen feel less vexed.

  “But, you know,” Orholam went on, “it’d be hazardous. It is pretty dark out, and some people say Orholam can’t see at night.”

  Dazen glowered.

  It turned out that the reckless, winsome Guile grin had nothing on God’s.

  “So what is this?” Dazen demanded. “You’ve actually got a condor up your sleeve? No, You’d have to do me one better, wouldn’t you? An eagle or something?”

  “A machina, up My sleeve? That’d be cheating. Now, hurry. It’s a long fall if you miss the timing.”

  “Timing? What timing?”

  “For the jump! You do remember where the gap is on the level below this, right? Go through that gap—or it’ll be a short fall.”

  Dazen said, “You want me to jump? Off this tower? In the dark?”

  “Admit it, your last leap of faith was terrible,” Orholam said.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m giving you a do-over. A second chance,” Orholam said. He bent his knees, readying himself to run. “It’s what I do. Any moment now. Three… Two… Oh, don’t forget the blade!”

  “Right!” Dazen turned back. The gun-sword was still sticking out of the now-white tower.

  He yanked it free. Behind his back, he heard Orholam yell, “Now!”

  He turned.

  Orholam was gone.

  Oh no. No, no, no!

  Fear grabbed at his legs to hold him in place. It was probably already too late. If the timing was so tight, then he’d surely already—

  Dazen kicked Fear in the face.

  As he sprinted toward the edge, he shouted, “I can’t believe You’re making me do this!”

  And he leapt.

  Chapter 140

  “Can you fight?” Karris asked. Baffled, the crowd was torn between gasping at the dazzling spectacle of lights above them or at the young man silently healing at their feet. Healthy skin was surfacing from beneath his burns, and where he’d been burned bald, hair was growing in speedily—but as if it were natural, as if this were something that happened every day.

  But none of them mattered.

  “Yes,” Kip said tentatively, then, gaining strength, “Yes! Let’s go kick some ass!”

  Big Leo hauled Kip to his feet as easily as Karris might lift a quill.

  Kip immediately collapsed again.

  “Well, that’s awkward,” Kip said, looking at his limbs like they were purposely embarrassing him.

  “Son—can I call you son?—I’m so glad you’re alive,” Karris said, “but other people are dying. My people. Right now. If we live, we’ll—”

  “We’ll do all sorts of things,” Kip said. “Got it. But you need to go. So go.”

  “You showed me how to win,” Karris said, and she felt like the Iron White again as she said it. “We have to kill the White King. And that’s on me. It doesn’t matter that it looks impossible. And our best chance is tonight, right now. Who knows how long this will last,” she said, pointing to the spectacle of many lights dancing above them. “Right now is the only time we’re going to have the advantage. We win now or we lose. Kip, I love you. Can I take Big Leo and the Mighty?”

  She knew she sounded scattered, but there were too many things to do all at once.

 
; “Yes,” Kip said at the same time Big Leo said, “Uh-uh. I’m not leaving you again.”

  “Leonidas,” Kip said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Big Leo, you can’t think I’m in danger now,” Kip said. “Orholam Himself saved me. I’m gonna be fine. You think He did all that to let me get killed two minutes later?”

  “I’ll stay,” Tisis said.

  “Me, too,” one of the nunks of the Mighty said.

  “See?” Karris said.

  “Besides, you didn’t help at all with the blue bane,” Karris said. “Think of this as a second chance.”

  “Leo didn’t help with the blue?” Kip asked. “I thought—Holy shit, man, the rest of ’em are never gonna let you live that down.”

  “Fine. I see how it is,” Big Leo said. He looked at the nunk volunteer. “But not you. Anyone who volunteers might be Order. I’m not sure they’re all dead.” He pointed to two of the other nunks at random. “You and you, but keep ten paces out.”

  “Yes, Commander,” they said. The original volunteer looked offended, but kept his mouth shut.

  Big Leo loosed his big copper chain. “Wight King’s flotilla’s that way, right?”

  “Straight down the main street,” Gill said. “But we’ll have to make it through the Great Market and maybe even past the orange—”

  But Big Leo wasn’t paying attention. He swung his great thick chain over his head, and suddenly, it took fire, whooshing with each great circle. “Let’s go kill some pagans! For the Iron White. For the Lightbringer!”

  And then as they roared in return, he ran, as if he didn’t care if he had to do it all himself, as if he’d simply take all the glory for himself, and if they missed out, so much the worse for them.

  In a moment, everyone followed—not only the Mighty, not only Karris’s remaining Blackguards, but practically every able-bodied civilian in the square, too.

  Karris looked at Kip, shrugged, and then hopped off the platform. Gill was holding a horse for her.

  “Go on,” Kip said. “That’s your battle cry. That’s your advantage. You shout it every chance you get: ‘The Lightbringer is come.’”

  But she glanced back, and as he said it, he wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at the battle. He was looking up at Andross Guile, limned in light at the top of the Prism’s Tower.

  Chapter 141

  Gavin had once said, ‘The only thing more dangerous than winning a battle is losing one.’

  Now Karris knew what he meant.

  Not once, but twice as she and her people fought across Big Jasper, Karris saw jubilant Chromeria forces rush around corners and blunder into each other—and go blasting away at one another with muskets and magic before they realized they were killing their allies.

  She’d only been saved from the same by the great beam of white light that followed her everywhere she went—Andross tagging her somehow, which had not only saved her from friendly fire but also drew enemies.

  Not that she should really complain.

  Nor was there was any way to do so, if she’d wanted to.

  But it did make what she’d hoped would be a simple jog across Big Jasper into a running battle that took the entire night.

  Her forces had torn into the weakened northern flank of the White King’s drafters encircling the Great Fountain, and demolished them. A young general named Lorenço was commanding in Corvan Danavis’s stead. He was relieved to see them, and delighted to give over command.

  But Karris didn’t want to command, and it took valuable time to get the strike force she wanted out of him. She also reclaimed her own Blackguards that she’d sent on before her to help High General Danavis. Lorenço believed the grievously injured high general was dying, and had put him in the care of physickers nearby. Karris would have liked to thank the man or at least say goodbye, but there was no time.

  Once she had her force, she didn’t go out of her way to save others or even to attack shaken Blood Robes—not much, anyway. And yet, for every company they encountered that simply melted at the sight of them, others fought tooth and nail. Clearly, many had no idea of what had happened out of their own sight, and most of the Blood Robes thought they were still winning and that the Jaspers would soon be theirs.

  Nor was fighting in the middle of beams of light an unqualified advantage—for some of the Blood Robes were canny enough to use the darkness to spring traps, especially with will-cast animals: Karris’s people were attacked by wolves, a tiger, a giant javelina, and even a bear once.

  But everywhere they went, they shouted, “The Lightbringer has come!” and with their ever-burning coruscation of every color and the heavens alight with untimely scintillance, the Blood Robes believed them and were sore afraid.

  The idea spread through their battlefields like a slow, stubborn fire.

  Karris’s people forced the Blood Robes in their sector all the way back to the wall they’d climbed on their way in and smashed them against it, men and women suddenly panicking that they would be left inside the city they had worked so hard to enter.

  As she crossed the wall itself, from that higher perch, she could see her brother’s own dragon-ship out beyond the orange bane—but first her eye was drawn to the yellow bane, which cracked open like an egg and blazed brightwater skyward in great fountains shooting up into the night.

  A lone figure was running along the shattering shell, dodging enemies and splinters and shards of yellow glass. He ran to one yawning edge of a sudden abyss, much too far, and bounced, ludicrously high and far to the other side.

  Landing, he split a yellow wight nearly in half with a spearlike thing—a tygre striper?—who in the world knew to how fight with one of those these days?

  But it could be nothing else. It bent and straightened—now plastic, now rigid—as the warrior cut through half a dozen yellows in turn, all fleeing him or fleeing to get off the crumbling yellow bane. The young man sprinted with great long strides, impossibly long and fast, and Karris realized his very legs must be fitted with the same kind of sea demon bone that made the tygre striper directly susceptible to the Will.

  “Shit, I don’t see Einin,” Big Leo muttered. Then he shouted, “Ben-hadad! Ben!”

  And then Big Leo was gone, taking the Mighty with him to rescue his comrade, who, truth be told, didn’t look like he needed rescuing.

  In minutes, though, they all re-formed on the orange bane.

  It was the last place Karris wanted to be. You couldn’t trust your very eyes here. The orange bane was virtually paved with uncured lumber and flat stones—anything the Blood Robes had been able to find to make themselves pathways on the oleaginous surface. To step off the paths and streets was to risk sinking to the waist in orange goo.

  Karris immediately feared traps, but nothing happened as they charged across the surface. There were few oranges, and they’d not been expecting a counterattack, so perhaps for once, Karris and the Chromeria’s defenders would get lucky.

  And then the surface of the bane shifted as if in an earthquake, and behind them an orange hill rose and rose.

  They ran, faster, and faster. Ben-hadad blitzed on ahead of them all, with his great inhuman loping strides, looking for traps or ambushes or even safe havens.

  But then they were plunged into darkness as the hill rose so high that the mirrored light from the Thousand Stars could no longer reach them.

  And then the bane settled behind them—and split open ahead, yielding to the wood decks of the White King’s own dragon-ship flotilla of a dozen galleys lashed together.

  Its eerie white wooden skin bristled with ivory, metal, and luxin spikes, and its mouth gushed fire from spouts out its draconic mouth.

  Karris and her people were out of range of that fire, but she saw hundreds of his warriors leaping out onto the orange bane.

  She recognized their standards: these were Koios’s personal guard, maddened, screaming, carrying their own colors forward into the night.

  Karris
had fewer than three hundred elite warriors with her, many of them better drafters than fighters, now trapped in the darkness with no mag torches left. Dawn was achingly close, but too far off to make a difference—and suddenly, alone, her three hundred were facing thousands of the White King’s best and freshest troops.

  For the moment, the Chromeria was winning this battle. Hell, they might win the battle outright, regardless of what happened in the next few minutes to Karris.

  But that didn’t make a whole lot of difference right here, did it?

  As Gavin had said, ‘Dead winners and dead losers have only one thing in common. Unfortunately, it’s the most important thing.’

  Chapter 142

  The great, winged machina must have flown directly at the tower, nosed up hard to vertical at the last moment to avoid a collision, and stalled just in time to catch Orholam gently.

  In jumping late, Dazen was going to get nothing gentle. He plunged after the falling condor, seeing Orholam nonchalantly pulling Himself into a finely carved wooden seat and tying a rope around His waist, even as the machina fell sideways, slowly spinning.

  Dazen fell only slightly faster, head angled down like a boy diving into the water, sword flopping about hazardously in the air.

  He realized that the principles of flight, which he’d only been starting to master when he’d made the first condor, also applied to his body. There was probably something smart and dextrous he should be doing right now.

  Orholam have mercy, it was as if they were two horses racing each other, and he’d taken the outside track to doom. He started to pass the condor, too far away to grab on to the tail or the seats, coming equal to its nose before the condor, now headed straight down, began falling as fast as Dazen was.