by Brent Weeks
Worse, their heavy-browed sons didn’t, either. She could beat any five of them, of course, depending. But the skirts of a thobe were too easy to snag, and her own experience with getting beaten in that alley not two months ago was too fresh for her to be haughty. She felt a stab of that same feeling of helplessness she’d spent her whole life fleeing.
Someone whistled at her. Her fists clenched. Dammit, all her instincts were wrong here. It was like the world had changed, and no one had bothered to tell her—all because she was wearing a thobe. Going and punching the whistler in the face wasn’t going to get the same cowed reaction that it would have when she was wearing her Blackguard garb. Neighborhoods that should have been dangerous for her prey were instead dangerous for her.
It felt like a failure when she put on her green spectacles to let them know she was a drafter. Thank Orholam she had that at least. At a single disapproving raised eyebrow above those spectacles, the men gathering blanched and disbursed.
It made her wonder. Other women dealt with this kind of thing every day, without bloodshed, without incident—and without a drafter’s spectacles. Karris literally didn’t know how they did it. She wondered if that didn’t make her weaker, somehow, in her strength. Another woman would have defused the situation before it became a situation. Karris only knew how to intimidate, to evince superior power one way or another. She’d had drafting for so long, she wasn’t sure how she would deal with life if she didn’t have it. Humbling thought.
And now, she didn’t have drafting. Not really. She could wear the spectacles, but if she drafted, the White would know. Even if she didn’t know, if she asked, would Karris lie to her?
No. Not to the White.
She was still being followed.
She took off the spectacles and walked straight until she found the alley she’d been waiting for—long, without any other entrances, nor other alleys running parallel to it. If she were to be followed at all, her tail would have to follow down this alley. She stepped into the weaver’s shop on the alley corner. “Scarves?” she asked. “Silk if possible? I’m a wedding guest.” She smiled blandly, and the delighted woman disappeared into the back of the shop, as Karris knew she would, leaving her undisturbed. Karris put a danar on the counter to pay for the deceit and the ambush place, and hid among the free-flowing bolts of cloth hanging from the ceiling.
Her tail passed the doorway blithely.
Karris was on top of him in a moment, side kick—left foot behind her right, power gathered in her hips, and right foot shooting out sideways into the man’s passing shoulder with the force of a horse’s kick. Petite as she was, it didn’t matter, with all her power applied so perfectly. The man shot up to his tiptoes and was thrown sideways. He hit the wall of the alley, three paces away, with a crunch. Before he could even crumple all the way to the ground, Karris was on top of him, fingers locked around his windpipe, pinning him to the wall, fist drawn back.
The man was caught in an awkward half crouch. He groaned. He’d been wearing a hat, and now it lay at his feet. He was perhaps forty, greasy, had sun-dark skin, a messy semblance of an Atashian’s beaded beard.
He grunted. “Tol’ me you might hit me. Thought to myself, little woman like that, how hard can she hit?”
“Who sent you?” Karris asked.
“He’s too careful for that, girl. He told me to tell you, this could have been another rough lesson like the last time. This is mercy.”
“What? Another lesson?”
“When you got beat to hell. And I didn’t have anything to do with that, so don’t take it out on me. Hey, you mind letting me sit down or stand up?”
Karris let the man go.
“My thanks.” He looked at her, and blanched. “Nine hells. You’re the white Blackguard, aren’t you? The girl, changes her hair. That bastard. Sending me after you. You didn’t even draft.”
“Tell me something that convinces me not to hurt you.”
“Fine, hell with him. Didn’t pay me that much. He told me to string you out, make this take as long as possible. He didn’t even set up a time for me to meet up with him again and tell him what I’d learned. You got somewhere else you’re supposed to be?”
Karris didn’t think so. But she didn’t let the man’s words distract her. He could be talking so that his friends could take her unawares. But there was no one else in the alley.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He grimaced. Gave up. “Dayan Dakan.”
“You owe me, Dayan Dakan.”
“Ah, balls.”
If whoever had hired him wanted this to take as long as possible, she needed to reclaim as much time as she could. She ran, arriving back at the Chromeria sweating in a very unladylike fashion. She’d considered hiring a horse, but figured it would have actually been slower. Not all streets were open to riders, and with the time it would take to hire a horse in the first place, running was faster, even awkward as it was in a thobe. She hopped into the lift, and took it as high as she could.
“News?” she asked the Blackguards at the top of the lift. One was the new boy, Gill Greyling, the other was the tall eunuch Lytos.
They looked at each other. Neither said anything.
“Where’s your escort?” Lytos asked.
Dismissing Samite after going to the Crossroads might not have been the best idea, but she wasn’t going to talk to Lytos about that.
“Gill, you owe me,” she said. “And this won’t even be close to setting us even.”
He sighed. He clearly would have preferred to forget letting that strumpet into Gavin’s room. He cleared his throat and said, “There’s an emergency meeting of the Spectrum. Was supposed to start an hour ago, but Yellow and Sub-red couldn’t make it then. They’re just getting started.”
Lytos looked at the young man.
“What?” Gill asked. “She’s one of us.”
Lytos glowered at him.
“What?”
“Thank you, you’re both lovely,” Karris said. She ducked into Gavin’s room—it was still too strange to think of it as her own room—and tried to decide if she needed to change, or if she could just use some powder to combat the sweat. She looked around for Marissia. For a room slave, the woman didn’t spend much time in her room.
Now I want Marissia to be here. Not very consistent, are we, Karris?
She mopped her face with a cloth and then slapped powder on quickly, fought with her hair for half a minute, and decided history belongs to those who show up. She headed to the lift.
“Wow, that was quick. You look f—” Gill started to say.
“Not a word, boy. Not. A. Word.” Had she really just called a nineteen-year-old a boy?
She approached the Spectrum’s Chamber and the Blackguards standing outside it, and suddenly wished she looked a little more glamorous.
“Lady Guile,” the ranking Blackguard said. It was her old counterpart.
“Watch Captain Blademan. Good afternoon.”
“The Spectrum meetings are only for the Spectrum, Karris, you know that,” he said, stepping in front of the door.
“I’m my husband’s representative here.” It was weak, and they both knew it.
“Karris, please, don’t make a scene.”
“It’s Lady Guile, thank you, and a lady doesn’t make a scene.”
Watch Captain Blademan was befuddled for a moment. And a moment was all Karris needed to thread her petite figure past him and open the door.
“Lady—” He stopped abruptly as the door swung open and Karris walked inside.
She walked over to Gavin’s seat as insouciantly as if she herself were Gavin Guile. She sat. She didn’t see how the rest of the Spectrum took her appearance, because all of her attention was on Andross Guile. He smiled behind his dark spectacles. The bastard. He didn’t even look surprised. For a moment, it shook Karris’s belief that the man who’d tailed her must have been sent by him. But if not Andross, then who?
“Hello, daughter
, so good of you to join us,” Andross said. His shadow, Grinwoody, was standing at his elbow as always, whispering in his ear. “I suppose that more than makes a quorum. Shall we get started?”
Karris knew they hadn’t just started, but Andross liked to deadpan his jabs. It might not even have been aimed at her. She looked around the room and saw that only the Sub-red was absent. The woman was serially pregnant and usually nursing one of her brood, but she didn’t usually let either get in the way of her duties.
“We can continue from where we were, Andross,” the White announced.
So it had been a jab. Well, to hell with him. Karris was here now. It was a victory, if a small one.
“For reasons we discussed before all the hangers-on were allowed into this hallowed chamber,” Andross said, “certain, more drastic moves must wait. Our representatives are scouring the seas and the beaches as we speak. Until then, we have to play the hand dealt us, yes?”
Karris had no idea what he was talking about, but she could see tight-lipped nods among the Colors at the table. If they’d been talking just a few minutes ago even more privately than this, it must be something very secret. He’d said ‘hangers-on,’ plural. That meant that he wasn’t just talking about Karris coming into the room. The Spectrum must have been meeting without slaves in attendance, even without the Blackguard. What was so secret that the Blackguard wasn’t allowed to attend?
From the White’s expression, Karris could see that the woman didn’t like such secrets referred to even this obliquely.
“In the meantime, we’re at war.”
Klytos Blue shifted in his seat, like he wanted to speak out, but daren’t, not against Andross Guile.
But Andross Guile flared with anger. “You’d deny it, Klytos? Still? How many of our ships must they sink? How many of our people must they kill? We face nothing less than the old gods, and those heretics who would bring them back. We will have a little respite this winter—but it is a respite that will help our enemies more. Few ships can traverse the Cerulean Sea in winter’s storms, and our enemies are on foot. We will have only those few Ruthgari soldiers and the remnants of the Atashian forces, under that idiot General Azmith.”
“That’s my cousin!” Delara Orange said. Her face was slack, flushed, eyes bloodshot.
“Then you’ve one idiot in your family. Or is it two?” Andross shot back.
She huffed and fell silent. It was an acquiescence, though, and Karris thought that if Delara admitted her cousin was stupid so easily, then Andross might actually be understating the case.
“You need to get word to him,” Andross said, “that he is to fight delaying actions only. Under no circumstance is he to risk a large-scale conflict.”
“Have we not sent these orders already?” the White asked.
“We have.” Andross didn’t elaborate, and for Karris, he didn’t need to. She had seen how men intent on glory could get others killed. And Andross didn’t like giving an order when he had not the means to enforce its obedience.
“Delaying actions?” the White asked. “How much ground are we to give?”
Andross sighed. “We will need to marshal our forces for the spring. Realistically, we won’t be able to stop them from advancing into Blood Forest.”
“There are border towns. Ox Ford, Stony Field, Tanner’s Turn, Mangrove Point. Are you proposing we just let them die?” the Orange asked quietly, horrified.
“How do you propose we save them?” Andross asked. “Do you know of good options? Please. Elucidate.”
“I—I just can’t believe…”
“We tell the people to get out, burn it all, starve the Color Prince’s army as it invades. Satrap Willow Bough won’t like it, but if they won’t… we have to look at the possibility that we’ll lose Blood Forest.”
“You want them to burn jungles? In the wet season?” the Orange asked.
“I want them to win this war in one decisive conflict with no losses on our side. I want none innocent to suffer. You’re asking what I want? Don’t be fools. We need to win. So we need the Blood Foresters to poison wells. We need them to slaughter animals. We need them to torch their fields and cut down swaths of jungle and force every last one of their red drafters to break the halo if necessary to put it to flame. We need them to win so that nine months from now we aren’t talking about what villages we’ll have to abandon in Ruthgar.”
He let that sit, and no one said anything.
“In the interim, we’ve lost the bulk of our fleet. We could begin to build and borrow a new one, but I propose that we don’t even need to do that. We only need these new sea chariots that the Blackguards have developed—”
“That Gavin invented,” Karris said.
“Yes, of course. The Blackguards merely perfected them. Whatsoever you please, dear.”
She sat back, stung. How did the bastard do that? Make her look so small?
Andross continued, “With the sea chariots, we can control the seas, without the cost of an entire fleet. We know this Color Prince has been working with Ilytian pirates, and this way we can keep him from being resupplied by sea.”
This Color Prince. My brother.
“We can save specific tactical discussions for later,” the White interjected.
“Fair,” the Red said. “But this we can agree on: our last battle was a disaster. We can’t direct a war from afar. We’re going to need a promachos.”
Delara Orange laughed aloud. “And you did such a good job directing our last battle we should choose you, huh?”
Andross snapped back without the least pause, “You’re a disgrace who couldn’t even hold her satrapy against a petty raider from Tyrea. You allowed this to blossom from a small problem to a huge one. Your defense was so heinously weak, I wonder if we aren’t in the presence of a traitor. I never had functional command over those incompetents you insisted on being our generals, unlike the command a promachos would have, so check your memory. Maybe it’s in the bottom of a bottle.”
“You stopped us from defending ourselves!” Delara shouted. “You refused to help! You came too late, and you knew it. You want us to make you promachos?”
“Enough,” the White said.
“I wasn’t talking about me,” Andross said. “I’m too old. That burden is too great and—”
“I’ve lost everyone I l—” Delara shouted.
“Enough!” the White barked. “Delara, you have our sympathies, and you still have your vote, which you will lose if you’re not present to use it. Do not give that up. What is it you propose, High Luxlord Guile?”
I’m too old? The old spider was admitting that? Karris could scarcely believe it. Who would he be proposing instead?
“You all know that I had my disagreements with my son at times, but none of us can deny the unifying effect he had on the Seven Satrapies. He was a figurehead, but he was a well-loved one. In losing him, we have lost one of the most important bonds that holds these disparate satrapies together. For reasons that we should all know all too well, there will be…” He paused, parsing his words carefully. “Unless Orholam relents, it appears there will be no new Prism this Sun Day, but by ancient law we must name a Prism-elect. So we must all be on the lookout for Orholam’s chosen. I’m sure we will all spend much time in prayer. We will have to survive as best we can for a year without one. That means the old orders. Every drafter working together, and offsetting those who have joined the enemy.”
Karris looked around the table and saw drawn, gray faces everywhere. “You’re not giving up on Gavin,” she said. “He’s not dead. You should be focusing your efforts on finding him.”
“Of course we will,” Andross said smoothly. He smiled apologetically, as if dealing with a hysterical woman who couldn’t bear to acknowledge her husband’s obvious death. “This is merely contingency planning.”
Karris wanted to punch his face in.
“Why can’t we name a new Prism?” Arys Sub-red asked.
Karris saw that at least of
couple of the newer Colors wondered the same, but Andross said immediately, “This is not a matter for an open meeting.”
“You’re calling this an open meeting?”
“Only the Colors themselves and the High Magisterium may discuss these matters,” the White said, clearly not happy to concur, but doing so. “And not the one without the other.”
Karris’s jaw clenched. Andross was angling for something, and she couldn’t see what it was.
Andross continued, “We have worked together before through such trials, and we can do so again. We shall do so again. Regardless, our needs, our war, and our peoples cannot wait until even Sun Day to find unity. We must face two painful truths before we lose everything: my son is dead, and we need a promachos.”
“He’s not dead,” Karris said.
“Daughter, it speaks well of your loyalty and your love that you hope against hope as you do, but prudence demands a harsher reckoning with truth. Gavin is—”
“Alive,” a voice interrupted from the door. “He’s been taken captive by an Ilytian pirate named Gunner.”
Everyone stopped talking at once. Karris caught a faint glimpse of Marissia as the door closed behind Kip, who had just spoken. Kip! Kip was alive?
And Gavin? Karris’s heart surged. She felt tingles all the way down her arms. It was hope. Real hope, not stubbornness.
In the weeks since the battle, Kip had changed. For one thing, he must have been starved, because he now looked merely thick instead of fat. He looked a Guile. Strong chin, blue eyes bright with intelligence, ringed with green from drafting, broad shoulders, broad chest, thick though still shapeless arms. But the biggest change was in Kip’s demeanor. There was nothing flippant or sarcastic or jokey about him, not in this moment. He was focused, quiet, unimpressed by this collection of the most powerful people in the world.
“So the bastard returns,” Andross Guile said.
“Enough of that nonsense, grandfather,” Kip said. “My father established what I am once and for all.”
