by Brent Weeks
A dagger, against a red wight. Not the odds she’d want, but it was good to have a backup if she weren’t able to draft before he attacked.
“Before we bring this meeting to order,” the White said, “I’m afraid I bear sad tidings. Our friend and colleague Arys Greenveil has passed away in childbirth this afternoon.”
“Orholam have mercy,” Orange said. She put her hand to her mouth.
“No, no, no,” Jia Tolver said. The Sub-red was her cousin.
“What happened?” Andross Guile asked.
The White shook her head. “Her chirurgeons said that she seemed unusually tense, that she knew something was wrong, but she wouldn’t say what. She only cared about her babe, Ben-Oni, she named him, Son of my Agony. After she heard his first cries, she hugged him, looked into the distance, and lost consciousness. She never woke.”
“Damn her,” Delara Orange said with real grief, “I told her she couldn’t keep having children forever.”
“We each serve as best we know,” Andross said quietly. It was meant to be comforting, and for a moment, Karris believed him. She’d forgotten that before he’d become the spider, he’d been a man of charisma almost as great as his son’s.
She looked at him now, wondering. Could a red wight maintain such a façade? Perhaps grief was a passion, too.
The Spectrum joined the White in a prayer for the deceased, and Karris found some peace in the cadences, rising and falling. Dead during childbirth. She remembered her own childbirth. The pain. She’d thought she was dying herself. She had wanted to die, for a time. And then she’d realized she didn’t hate herself, she hated her weakness. She’d come back, remade herself, joined the Blackguard, become brave.
And yet she’d run from that child. Was still running. Still felt sick at the very thought of it. She hadn’t told Gavin about it, when he’d exposed all of his shameful secrets to her. He’d bared his throat to her, and she’d held him and listened, as if she were pure.
Her child—her son, for they’d told her the gender of her child by accident, though she’d begged them not to—was out there now, deep in the woods of Blood Forest, right in the path of an army of wights. It turned her stomach.
You can’t run forever, Karris.
“I’m sorry to intrude on our grief,” Andross Guile said, finally, when the prayers were finished. “But as we all know, these present crises give us little respite, no matter how much we need it.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Andross,” Delara said. “Bring your business.”
Karris grabbed for the dagger in her pocket. A red wight, rudely contradicted? Powder, meet sparks. But …
Andross Guile smiled sadly. “Delara, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been rude to you. Unfeeling. You’ve endured much in these last months, and I’ve added to your burdens, not eased them. I beg your forgiveness.” At first, Karris thought he must be mocking her, a snide, stone-cold deadpan sarcasm. But his gestures were placating, his tone sincere.
Someone leaned back in her chair, and when it creaked, the whole room could hear it, loud as a musket shot.
Andross Guile looked down at his lap, as if ashamed. “These last years have been hard for me. I have seen my own power shrink. I stopped drafting to retain my sanity, and it was like shutting off the tap to Orholam’s majesty for me. I have lived in darkness. The physical darkness made me sick, and became moral darkness as well. I have only thought of myself. I mistreated you, my fellow Colors, and I abused those closest to me: my last remaining son and my wife. Now both of those have been taken from me. My wife took the Freeing against my wishes. Slipped away because she feared—rightly—that I wouldn’t give her my permission. When I lost my last son—” He stopped, a hitch in his voice.
He raised his head and turned his bespectacled eyes toward the White. “You and I have jousted for years,” he said sadly. “And for years, I have resisted your wisdom. For years, I have been on the very edge of the halo. I took to wearing gloves, and black spectacles, not just to shield myself from light, but to shield myself from your sight. So you wouldn’t know how close to that fire I stood.” He heaved a sigh, and Karris gripped her dagger tightly, wondering if he would shoot out of his chair and start killing.
“It is time,” Andross said, “for truth.”
Karris widened her stance, putting her feet on either side of her chair so she could jump.
Andross began tugging off his long gloves. “At our last meeting, I am ashamed to confess it, but I was at the break point, and when we prayed for a miracle, I had only a mustard seed of faith that Orholam could do anything for us. For me.” He looked up, intensity writ in every line of his face. “But I am here to tell you today that Orholam is mighty. And he is good. I fell asleep at prayer, believing nothing could save me, ready to suicide when I woke. I slept. I dreamed. In my dream, Orholam told me that old and frail as I am, he is greater than my frailties. He is magnified in my weakness. He is mighty to save. We are earthen vessels, but we can serve for his honor, and he will empower us to serve as he wills.” Andross took off his gloves and tossed them on the table. He threw back his hood. “I prayed, I slept, I dreamed, I heard, and I am remade.” He opened his cloak and dropped it in his chair, and took off his darkened spectacles and dropped them on the table.
Karris had known that Andross Guile was in his mid-sixties—knowing they would die young, drafters usually married early, usually bore children as soon as possible—but in her mind she’d believed he must be ninety years old at least. He was old, he was decrepit, he had one foot in the grave.
But this Andross Guile wasn’t the one she had known. She dropped her stolen dagger from nerveless fingers.
Andross Guile was bedecked in a luxin-red tunic with gold brocade that emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the power of his straight back. His once-lank hair had been cut short, washed, combed. His skin seemed young, taut where it had been loose and flabby. But none of those were the real wonder. He laid his hands on the table, then turned them over.
Neither back nor palm was stained with red luxin. And as he turned his eyes on each Color in turn, finally coming to Karris, she saw the real miracle: Andross Guile’s halos weren’t even halfway through his irises. He looked like a man with ten more years of drafting in his eyes.
It was impossible. It had to be a hex, a phantasm of orange magic.
“Touch me,” he said. “Look and see. Delara, is this a hex?”
“N-no,” she said. She didn’t appear to be able to say anything else.
Jia Tolver did touch Andross. She touched his hand, his arm, in open wonder. The others needed no such proof.
“Orholam be praised,” Klytos said, and if nothing Andross had done or said for the last few minutes had seemed calculated, Klytos’s invocation of Orholam certainly did. It snapped Karris back to reality. Andross Guile, whatever had happened to him, was still Andross Guile. She shouldn’t lay down her wits simply because the impossible had happened. He was a Guile; the impossible always happened with that damned family.
Of course, I’m a Guile now, too. Dammit.
Andross let the silence stretch until it seemed someone else was about to fill it, and then he said, “Orholam has charged me with a task, and has equipped me for it, and today, I ask the Spectrum to concur with his will. I am to put down this heresy, this blasphemous Color Prince, and to do so, I must be made promachos.”
It was a little rushed, but perhaps Andross Guile didn’t see any benefit in waiting.
“I nominate Andross Guile to be promachos,” Klytos Blue said.
“I second my nomination,” Andross said.
“Point of order!” Delara said. “Do we even have a quorum? Green is gone with no replacement yet named, the Prism is missing, and Arys has not yet been placed at rest.”
“The election of a promachos requires a majority of the currently serving Colors,” Andross said.
Carver Black nodded, confirming the truth of that. Everyone around the table quickly calculated
what that meant. Black had no vote. White voted only in ties. With Sub-red dead and no replacement yet named for her, and Gavin missing along with the vote he carried as the representative for the exiled Tyreans who’d moved to Seers Island, a majority meant he only needed three of five.
He continued, “It’s a high hurdle, to be sure, but Orholam has given us a way to move forward despite that. You all have known me for many years, and you’ve known Orholam and how he works. You all know the crisis before us. I see no need for further deliberations. I call the question.”
Klytos voted yes, of course. Andross voted yes, saying that abstaining would be a false modesty. That left Jia Tolver Yellow and Delara Orange. He only needed one of them. If he lost both of them, the White would vote.
“I vote nay,” Delara Orange said, folding her arms. “You have played me the fool for the last—”
“This is not the time for speeches,” Andross snapped. “It’s time for votes. Jia?”
Jia scowled, her unibrow squirming as her face went through a dozen expressions. “I cannot stand in the way of Orholam. Our personal differences aside, this seems to me to be a very real miracle. I vote aye.”
A breath went out around the table.
“The ayes carry it,” the White said. Her tone and face both were inscrutable. “We will administer the oaths of office tomorrow in the great hall. Acceptable, promachos-elect?” she asked.
“More than acceptable, High Lady.” Andross Guile smiled. He didn’t even try to hide his triumph.
They were adjourned. Karris stood and walked out into the hall. She handed the dagger back to a confused Gavin Greyling as the young Blackguard stepped into the hall, but her chastising quip caught in her throat as she saw a familiar figure waddling down the hall.
“Caelia?” she asked. The little woman was not only a keen mind, she was also a drafter. Caelia had been the Third Eye’s right hand, and had become indispensable to General Danavis—now Satrap Danavis—in ruling Seers Island, which Gavin had made a new satrapy. “What are you doing— Oh no.”
“That’s Caelia Green to you, appointed by Satrap Corvan Danavis of Tyrea,” the woman said with a grin. “Boat just landed a few hours ago. Would have been here sooner, but there was some mix-up at the docks. I miss anything important?”
So that’s why Andross had seemed rushed. He’d found out a dissenting vote was arriving. One vote would have been enough to ruin his plans. A mix-up at the docks? Andross’s people had been stalling Caelia while the Spectrum met.
And on a difference of three minutes, all of history changes.
Chapter 33
Going back to the library after all that had happened to him since he’d been here last was eerie. Everything was exactly as it had been when Kip left. He walked past study tables with holes cut in the desktops for inkwells to rest, protecting them from being spilled. He passed down aisle after aisle of books, specially laid out to deal with the circular nature of this library, the bookcases themselves each slightly curved. This was only one of many libraries on Little Jasper, but it was the one that even first-year discipulae had access to, so it had been where he’d spent the bulk of his time.
A pang of nostalgia struck him, and he made his way to one of the desks. A stoop-shouldered nearsighted young scholar sat there. “Excuse me,” Kip said. “I’m looking for Rea Siluz.” The kind librarian had helped his studies of the cards and everything else. She’d also been the one who’d directed him to Janus Borig, the Mirror.
“Uh-huh,” the young man said. He turned back to his work. He had his own stacks of books and notes that he seemed deep in the middle of.
“Hey, I was—”
“There aren’t any books on Rea Siluz. If you have a problem with that, lodge it with the Office of Doctrine.”
“Huh?” Kip asked. “I’m not looking for a book on her, I’m looking for her. This tall, skinny, narrow face, dark hair? Usually works the late shifts?”
“Tell Timaeus very funny, and I hope his treatise rots in review.”
“I don’t know anyone named T—”
“Shh!” The librarian turned back to his own work.
Kip gave up. Maybe someone in one of the later shifts would know her. Weird, though. “I need access to the upstairs library,” Kip said.
“What year are you?” the librarian asked, peeved.
“I’m a Blackguard inductee.”
“Prove it,” the librarian said.
“Step out here for a bit,” Kip said. He cradled a fist in his other hand.
The man didn’t look intimidated in the least. “Accosting a librarian will get you banned from all libraries for a year.”
The cards spread in Kip’s hand:
Ram, the bully. “A year? Doesn’t sound so bad.” A little looming, a little violence threatened. A little bit of taking a young man’s physical weakness and rubbing his nose in it like dogshit. Smart Ram. “A year?” Kip said. “During war? And me a Blackguard, who might need this knowledge to fight? I don’t think so.” Lord Ram: “I’m a Guile. You think anyone’s going to punish a Guile for breaking your face? I could throw you off a balcony, and no one would say a word.”
And he actually considered playing each, or all. He stopped, disgusted.
Come a long way since Rekton, haven’t I? From powerless weakling to slaveholding bully. He had long known he was changing, but to this? Was this what he wanted to be?
“I’m sorry,” Kip said. “It was a jest, and a poor one, unworthy of me and unfair to you. I beg your pardon.”
The librarian looked at him as if a Blackguard apologizing was the oddest sight he’d ever seen. “Given,” he said. He shrugged. “Name?” he asked, fishing through his piles for a list.
“Kip Guile.”
The librarian coughed. “The Godsl— Ahem!” He shuffled his papers. Stopped. “Uh, you can go straight up, Master Guile,” he said.
But Kip had no joy in it. Godslayer. It was another burden, another expectation, like he’d done it once, so surely he’d do it again.
“Uh, question,” Kip said. He turned on a chagrined, charming smile. “Could I have just gone up without asking?”
“Of course. But if anyone is discovered in those libraries who is not allowed there, the penalties are severe. But we don’t guard the door or anything. I mean, it’s books.”
Good old Kip, ready to bash down doors—that were unlocked.
The first person Kip saw in the restricted library was Commander Ironfist. What?
“Commander! It’s great to see you!” Kip said. “I was kind of intimidated by the whole ‘restricted library’—”
The commander looked up sharply. “I’m working, Breaker.”
“What are you working on?” Kip asked eagerly.
“Breaker. Move on.”
Kip craned his head to see the title, and read aloud, “Mothers of Kings: An Unconventional Inquiry into Abornean Bloodlines? What’s that about? And all these others?”
“How far do you think you can run in twenty-four hours?” Ironfist asked flatly.
A dim light bloomed in Kip’s tiny, tiny brain: Warning, stupid! “Yes, sir!” he said, and retreated before he could hear any more words, which could only spell pain.
Kip moved to a desk where another luxiat five or six years older than him was studying. “Pardon me, can you tell me where the genealogies are kept?”
The young luxiat looked up. His eye twitched guiltily, like he was reading something he shouldn’t be. It was in some language Kip didn’t know, though, so he had no idea what it was. The young luxiat scowled and said, “You walked past it. Where that huge Blackguard is.”
Huge Blackguard? Commander Ironfist was legitimately famous. People on Big Jasper stopped and stared when they saw him, and not just because he was huge and handsome.
But the Chromeria was an enormous community, and to some, the famous people here were scholars or luxiats—people Kip had barely even seen. This young man would probably be as stunned that Kip co
uldn’t identify the six High Luxiats as Kip was that this luxiat didn’t know Ironfist. It was a little dose of humility.
Usually I need those more directly.
Anyway, much as Kip wanted to see the genealogies and family histories—how much time and blood had he spent getting access to those? It had been his original purpose in joining the Blackguard—he couldn’t go and sit down by Ironfist, not now. “Black cards,” he found himself saying. It just slipped out.
The young luxiat just looked at him. He looked somehow familiar, but it was probably just that everyone looked the same in those goofy robes.
“The heresy decks,” Kip said. Digging deeper, Kip.
“You young ones. You get access earlier than everyone else, and you still push it.” The young luxiat shook his head. “Those books are in the restricted library.”
“This is the restricted library,” Kip said. “Isn’t it?”
“You think there’s only one?”
“I did until just now.”
“Smarter than you look.”
“Huh?”
“But not by much, apparently.” The luxiat closed his book. He still looked tense. “Sorry. Look, you’re a Blackguard inductee, I can see that. That doesn’t give you access to everything. Heretical materials and forbidden magics are off-limits to everyone except the Colors and those they’ve given special permission. The black cards are black because they’re heretical, ergo…”
“Ergo, books about them are in the heresy section.”
“In the restricted libraries, but close enough.”
Kip saw that this wasn’t going anywhere. More permissions? He’d just been talking to the White. He could have asked her. She would understand his interest in the black cards, at least, but that was no guarantee that she would think he should have access to them. And what was he doing here anyway? Trying to find scandals to destroy Klytos Blue? Who knew if his father even needed that done anymore? Too late, Kip. Again.
Gavin was being held on a pirate ship. Doubtless the pirates would be treating him well—he was the Prism, after all—though Kip figured they’d have to be keeping him blindfolded or something to keep him from ripping them all to pieces with his power. Still, who knew when he would be back?
