The Burning White

by Brent Weeks

  But then the condor swooped, raising its nose and swerving into him. He bounced off its nose, the machina smacking his head and knocking the wind from his lungs, and the sword almost out of his grasp. He slid down its back. Or, more appropriately, up its back, as it was inverted, still falling. As Dazen slid, he grabbed for Orholam’s chair, or his legs—anything. But his three-fingered left-hand grip failed him again. He slid up to the tail, and there clung with his hands and knees gripping the winged machine like a bad rider clamped helplessly to the back of a spooked horse, feet braced against some small protrusions of the tail that hadn’t been there in his version of the machina.

  The wind tore at him as if he were as welcome as a tick, but he held on. He wasn’t going to die. Not yet.

  “Hey!” a baritone voice shouted at him. “Can you move your feet, please?”

  “I’m not back here for fun!” he shouted back.

  “Get your feet off the elevator flaps or we’re gonna hit the trees.”

  Dazen looked up, not at the speaker, but at the horizon. The condor was leveling out slowly, but it needed to climb rapidly, or it was going to smash into the hills ringing the plain around the mountain tower’s base.

  He scooted forward and pulled his feet off the nubs where he’d braced them and instantly felt gears shift and the tail flex. He tucked his head tight against the condor’s back as it shot up into the air.

  He didn’t move again until it leveled out. Then he scooted slowly, slowly forward, until he reached the windbreak on the condor’s back. He took the only other chair. Chairs? That was a nice innovation.

  No one had even offered to help him.

  “Thanks for the help!” he said. “No, I kept the sword, too. No problem.”

  Orholam and the captain of the air machine glanced at him as if he’d only just boarded.

  “Oh, did you hit your head?” the captain asked. “Sorry about that.”

  He didn’t sound sorry at all. “Not your fault,” Dazen said, though Orholam could have given him warning.

  “I know,” the captain said. “I meant I’m sorry you hurt yourself. I was being polite.”

  Real polite.

  Dazen returned the favor by staring at the man. The man had apparently also hit his head recently, as there was an ugly lump and abrasions across his forehead. But that wasn’t the main thing that made Dazen stare. This man was ethnically unlike anyone Dazen had ever seen: fine, straight black hair, broad cheekbones, and skin folded across his upper eyelids.

  No, scratch that. This man was unlike any Dazen had ever seen in real life, but not in art. There’d been a statue of a man like this at the beginning of the pilgrimage. Or… no. Not a man like this. This man.

  Not this man, this immortal.

  “Oh, hey, I’ve seen you before,” Dazen said. “It’s an enormous pleasure to get to meet you in person! I saw your statue. You must be really special!” Being overly friendly was sometimes the best way to irritate the surly.

  The immortal grunted.

  “This your island?” Dazen asked, relentlessly chipper.

  The immortal grunted again. Maybe a no.

  “Dazen Guile. Nice ta meetcha!”

  The immortal glowered at him. “I know who you are.”

  “You’re an immortal, huh? How’s that work? What do you do?”

  The immortal looked over to Orholam. “My lord? Permission to abandon ship?”

  “Denied,” Orholam said happily.

  “This is about my failure with V, isn’t it?”

  Vee? Dazen felt like a child among adults talking over his head.

  “Not a failure, not yet,” Orholam said. “And this is no punishment.”

  “Please don’t say it’s a reward”—the immortal cleared his throat and added quickly—“my most gracious lord. I beg you.”

  Orholam said nothing.

  “So it is a reward,” the immortal grumped. “And since you said ‘Not yet,’ you’re sending me back to her.”

  “If it’s possible,” Orholam said.

  “What would keep me from going back to—oh.” The immortal got quiet, then squared his shoulders. “So we’re heading into one of those kinds of fights,” he said.

  Great. We’re going into a battle that gives the immortals pause?

  “There’s victuals and a wineskin in the pack, and blankets,” the immortal told Dazen, nudging it with his foot, but not moving from the wheel. “Eat. Sleep.”

  After devouring the best food of his life, Dazen did.

  He woke to a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’ll want to see this,” Orholam said.

  The sun was beginning to lighten the sky. Dazen felt a hundred times better.

  Orholam pointed over the edge of the condor.

  They had to be hundreds of paces in the air. Dazen felt a brief moment of vertigo, then saw them—streaks in the water. “Are those… sea demons?” he asked. “What are they doing here? I thought there were only eight left.”

  “Seven of the eight accepted Orholam’s mercy last week,” the truculent immortal said, though Dazen hadn’t been asking him.

  “Last week?” Dazen asked. “But I only asked the boon for them yesterday. That was yesterday, right?”

  “It was,” Orholam said with a twinkle in his eye. “But I knew you’d ask.”

  “But what if I hadn’t?” Dazen asked.

  “That’s Karris Atiriel at their head. Unable to reverse Lucidonius’s soul-casting and bring him back home, after her years as Prism, in order to join her husband, she became a sea demon herself.”

  “I thought she established the Blackguard,” Dazen said. “Wasn’t half their purpose—”

  “Her intention was that no one would ever again do what Lucidonius had done, even as she planned how to copy him herself. Instead, her success proved to others that drafters less gifted than Lucidonius might also succeed. Now, after all these centuries, she’s ready. She’s finally chosen to abandon her husband to the self-destruction that he loves more than he loves her or anything.”

  Dazen absorbed that for a few moments, then asked, “But what are they doing here? This doesn’t look like release. They’re still sea demons.”

  “They serve, Dazen. Broken as they are. In gratitude to you, they asked that before they die, they might use what they’ve become for the good of the people they loved, and for you.”

  Dazen was about to find that very touching, when he saw something atop the sea demon. A platform? “What’s that on her head?” He squinted against the distance, but he lost it.

  Orholam was grinning. “That? You’re gonna love it. Do you want to know the last part of your penance, Promachos?”

  There’s more? No, I do not want to know about any more penance! “Yes, please?” he said.

  “There is no last part of your penance, but you will have opportunities to show that you’ve changed.”

  “That sounds a lot like penance.”

  “I know. Just like this next part could look a lot like a leap of faith, but it really isn’t.”

  “What are you talking about? A leap? We are going to land together, right? I can suggest some really—”

  “Not together, and we’re not landing. This is your part. I’m not getting out of the machina,” Orholam said. “Now, remember, the sea giants despise the bane, but they’re susceptible to their influence. In particular, Karris Atiriel is highly sensitive to the orange bane, even still. Do your best to destroy it before she arrives, would you?”

  “Sure, but I still don’t—”

  “Good. Kip will really appreciate it. Put this on. Oh, and one last thing,” Orholam said. He handed Dazen a canopy-pack and the gun-sword.

  “What?” Wrestling the pack on, strapping it tight with Orholam’s help, Dazen saw a fleet of ships and the bane like floating islands dotting the waves in the first gray light of the morning. The condor was closing fast. He felt disoriented. Why had all this waited until now?

  Orholam embraced him, and
at first, Dazen was too stunned to even return it. For all that Orholam looked like a reedy old man, His hug redoled of an unstinting strength that was unmistakably maternal: a mother gathering her hurt child into her arms, fierce in defense, gentle in encouragement.

  “Never forget,” Orholam said softly. “I see you. I hold you in My eyes.”

  Then He threw Dazen off the side of the condor.

  Chapter 143

  “Brother! I don’t want to kill you. But I will,” Karris shouted.

  Her people were doing better against vastly superior numbers than they had any right to be doing. It helped that everyone on both sides had exhausted both luxin and gunpowder, which left her with her Blackguards—not to mention the Mighty, who’d now been joined by all two dozen prospective members, and Ferkudi, and Winsen (who’d apparently destroyed the green bane by himself).

  Somehow they’d followed Karris, despite everything.

  Or not Karris, she knew. Ferkudi and Winsen had come to fight for Big Leo and Ben-hadad. They fought for one another, like brothers do.

  But not her brother.

  Koios had lost patience and joined the fray himself.

  He cut a swath through all of them, his own men first, heedless, murderous, then the Blackguards as well, battering them with jets of luxin, impaling men with great spikes, even blasting Gill Greyling far off to one side.

  Coming finally in front of her, he threw one hand up, and a cage of blue luxin shot up around her from the ground at her feet. Then he threw his other hand up, and the ground beneath them shot into the sky, making a craggy blue-luxin tower only wide enough for the two of them. She would have expected orange, here on the orange bane, but Koios had always been most adept with blue.

  Karris snapped off one of the bars imprisoning her, and then another. But there was a lethal drop on every side. There was nowhere to go.

  “Give up now,” he said. He pulsed with every color, rivulets of light cascading from his head and down his body, his luxin armor now more like a carapace than a suit. “Your people die. But you don’t have to join them.”

  “You’re losing,” she said.

  “Am I?” he said, and she hated that she could still hear echoes of his old voice in this monstrosity. He shook his head. “I have a dozen seed crystals in reserve. I can grow new bane in a day, and the Ilytian pirate kings’ reinforcements will arrive tomorrow. I overextended today in my eagerness. But nothing you’ve done has accomplished anything. Not a thing. You’ve delayed me by one day. Tell me, do you think your people can fight again tomorrow as they did today?”

  “You’re lying,” she said, heart sinking. “It’s all lies.”

  “Let’s see about that,” he said. He pulled out a brilliant green jewel, holding it with a thumb and forefinger.

  He waved his other hand, and the blue bars of Karris’s cage disappeared.

  Karris darted forward, but she felt the green luxin inside her body suddenly stiffen.

  She skidded on her knees. Against her will, her hand opened, and the scorpion tumbled out of it.

  “Worship me,” he said. “The very immortals weary of your Chromeria’s tyranny. They fight for me! I am a god of gods!”

  “You’re a slave and you don’t even see it,” Karris said.

  He sighed. “They’ve brainwashed you. It’s so very sad. I loved you, sister. I loved you so much. I love you still, but not like this, sister. Not like this.” As he rolled the green jewel between his fingers in the first of dawn’s light, its color flashed like a green wink. Her hands came up, palms spread as in supplication. He smiled at her, but it was an ugly smile, and in his other hand, a blade sprouted, longer and longer.

  “Say the word, sister, and live. Or… I’ll just to have to remember you as you were, before they corrupted you.”

  * * *

  Dazen was drifting downward beneath his canopy, trying to slow the thudding of his heart and choke down the tightness in his throat. Without drafting, he didn’t have the margin of error he used to have in everything.

  But Orholam Himself threw me. It’s gotta be a perfect throw, right?

  However, it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to land on Big Jasper at all. He was headed for the darkness of the ocean.

  Surely there’s going to be a crosswind coming soon?

  Any time now.

  There was no crosswind.

  But what he did see as he fell was a bane—orange? maybe red—and a flotilla of ships all lashed together, and then a battle of some sort. A circle of Blackguards and some others were holding off many, many more enemies.

  All right, all right, maybe this is the right place after all. Good throw, old man.

  He pulled out the Blinding Sword and pulled open the breech. There was no powder. Dazen started checking his pack to see if he had a powder horn somewhere.

  Surely he had a powder horn somewhere.

  The Blackguards were all in a circle around a narrow tower of some sort—and they all had their backs to it, making a last stand—and there she was atop the tower, his Karris, confronting a polychromatic wight.

  And she was on her knees.

  But Dazen was coming right down behind that big rainbow bastard. Dazen found the powder horn and tugged it clear of the canopy-straps.

  Cutting this close, Orholam old boy.

  He uncapped the powder horn with his teeth—

  And then something invisible caromed off him, sending him spinning up and sideways, tangling the cords of his canopy and throwing him wildly off course. The powder horn went flying, and he nearly lost the sword, too.

  He saw a flash of light that illuminated two winged figures fighting, tumbling through the air away from him, locked in combat.

  Spinning and swinging wildly off course, Dazen gripped the sword with white knuckles, trying to get his bearings. He was fast approaching the luxin tower—but not the part where he wanted to land.

  He was too far away. Now he was going to land behind Karris, at the very, very edge of the tower. He might not be able to stay on it at all.

  He had only moments to make a decision.

  Without black powder, he couldn’t shoot the gun-sword, but he could throw it like a spear. That worked, once in a while, throwing your sword. Once in a long while.

  Almost never.

  And throwing a sword like a spear while spinning and swinging…?

  But Dazen was the Promachos. That was who he was! He was the hero who arrived on the wings of the dawn and saved everyone at the last second. He could make the throw! He had to!

  Or… he could give up all that.

  * * *

  “Hey! Hey!” someone shouted in the air above them. The voice was familiar.

  Locked in place by the green seed crystal’s influence over the green luxin in her body, Karris couldn’t move, but she saw Koios look up quickly, alarmed, blinking against the glare of Orholam’s rising eye.

  A black blade landed across her open hands. It cut her palm as it slid through her grip, and the black luxin sucked greedily at the green luxin in her blood.

  And suddenly, as the green luxin immobilizing her was devoured, she was freed.

  But then Koios saw her moving, and saw the blade in her hands.

  He lunged at her, blade extending.

  Karris was nothing if not fast—it was the reason she’d made it into the Blackguard—so she lunged faster, batting Koios’s blade aside with a forearm and ramming the black sword home, all the way home into the Wight King’s chest.

  For a moment, it was as if nothing had happened. No blood poured from around the blade. Then, abruptly, it was as if he were collapsing in on himself. She realized what was happening: the blade was sucking every bit of luxin out of him in turn: sub-red, then red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and superviolet—

  —until Koios was, quite suddenly, merely a burned man with rage and disbelief in his wide eyes, wearing a necklace with colored and black jewels on it. She ripped the necklace off him and threw it
off the tower.

  Then she ripped the sword out of his chest. There was no blood, still, which stunned both of them.

  He threw a hand at her to lash out with magic, and she moved the sword desperately to parry the attack—but no luxin missile flew from him.

  Koios looked down in horror at his mortal flesh.

  His head shook, no, no. He threw his hand forward again, again, as if trying other colors in turn and finding none of them.

  His eyes filled with fear. He backed away, desperate. “Ye immortals! My servants! Come to me now! I command it!” Koios cried. “Save me now!”

  Extending his arms, he leapt off the tower as if he fully expected to be caught.

  His body crunched on the deck of the ship far below, crushed.

  “Um. Hate to be a bother,” a voice called out behind her.

  Gavin? “Gavin!” she cried.

  Her husband stood with his toes on the very edge of the tower, his hands cartwheeling as he tried to keep his balance.

  “Uh…” he said. “Hi, honey. Help?”

  Then, before she could move, he plunged out of sight.

  She was at the edge the next instant, as if she hadn’t had to cover the intervening space.

  She looked down, afraid of seeing his broken body beside her brother’s far below, but instead she saw Gill Greyling. He’d almost climbed the entire tower, coming after her—and now he’d snagged Gavin out of the very air.

  Twisting as he held Gavin’s wrist in his hand, the Blackguard said, “I lost one Gavin, sir. I’m not losing another.”

  And then she was helping hoist her husband up the tower. The battle immediately below them was finished—the Blood Robes had broken at the sight of their master leaping to his death.

  And then her husband was up, and safe, and in her arms.

  The dawn was glorious, but there were a million things to do. But none of them mattered right now. The feelings were too big to hold in for one more moment.

  She had never cried so hard in her life.

  Chapter 144

  “Will you… uh, will you look at my eyes?” Kip asked Tisis. He’d thought that it was simply the night, bleeding the colors from the land as it does, but the rising light of the incipient dawn was making it clear. There was something wrong with the colors; they were wan and weak. He said, “I blew my halos. On the Glare. It’s been really nice holding and being held by you, but now… I have to know.”