by Brent Weeks
“And kill gods and kings,” Cruxer said. He smirked.
“Gods and kings, plural?” Kip asked uncomfortably.
“I can’t remember. Of course, it depends which Seers you accept as canon. Those things are accepted by pretty much everyone. Some of the weirder Seers said, uh, can’t remember the exact phrasing, something about killing his brother—”
“Well that’s promising.” Zymun could use a good killing.
“—and dying twice.”
“I take that back,” Kip said.
“You did go overboard, and we thought you were dead, so that might count as one,” Cruxer said. “And everyone dies at the end of their life, so that could be it.”
“Or … the pirates who rescued me threw me back overboard, so maybe that’s twice,” Kip said. He didn’t buy it, though. “Great! Really helpful. Now I know I only need to die one, two, or zero more times. I may have to kill at least one more god and one more king. I do have to figure out how to heal blind people, and maybe pick up a bit about true worship.”
“Breaker, if it was easy, everyone would agree about it. A Seer sees a true vision, but they have to translate that into words, and that means into their own language, and into their own metaphors. And that’s if she’s a true Seer—there have been false ones. There are luxiats who make their life’s work of this sort of thing. Luxiats who are much better scholars than Klytos Blue, I might mention.”
“But if it’s all theological complexity and uncertainty, it’s useless! I mean, if I can’t figure out what it means, what’s the point?”
“Maybe it’s not for you.”
“I accept that, but if I were the Lightbringer wouldn’t I need…”
“No, even then.”
Kip looked at him, puzzled. “I’m … uh, not following.”
“The Lightbringer Prophecies may well not be for the Lightbringer’s benefit. They’re for everyone else. For the soldier who understands only a snippet, but it helps him hold the line. For the bereaved widow. For the young scholar, searching for meaning. What’s it matter, anyway? You’ve done pretty well so far not knowing the prophecies,” Cruxer said.
“Deliberate ignorance. I like this idea,” Kip said. He thought for a moment. “Everything we’ve said could be talking about my father. People thought he was dead when he fell into the water—” And somehow survived being stabbed with a knife that had morphed into a sword while it impaled him. Kip hadn’t told that part to anyone. They had already disbelieved him when he’d simply said his father wasn’t drowned. Who would believe the rest? Kip didn’t believe it; half the time he was convinced his eyes must have been playing tricks on him. “—and we’ve already talked about how a god being killed on Gavin’s command could well count even if he didn’t land the final blow.”
“His childhood doesn’t fit. Prophecy says the Lightbringer will come from the outside, outside the accepted or something. It fits a bas—a person initially thought to be a bastard coming from Tyrea. Doesn’t get much more outside the accepted than that. Gavin Guile is the son of Andross. He grew up here. He was groomed to take power. It doesn’t get much more inside than that.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me about that part!” Kip complained.
“I’m a Blackguard, not a luxiat. If you want to talk about prophecies, the people you should see are … well, actually they’re the last people you should see. In fact, I’m not so sure we should be including Quentin in any of this.”
“Quentin? Why not?”
“Somehow I thought it would be obvious to you. I forget you grew up in Tyrea.”
“Why wouldn’t I go to the luxiats?”
“Because if now is the time true worship needs to be restored, it means the luxiats are doing things so wrongly that Orholam himself is putting his hand in to make it right.”
“Well, shouldn’t they welcome Orholam moving? I mean, they’re luxiats.”
“Breaker … are you really that naïve?”
“They serve Orholam! That’s their job!” Kip said.
“Voice down.”
“Sorry, Captain.”
“We Blackguards exist to stop assassinations. It doesn’t mean we look forward to them.”
“Totally different,” Kip said.
“The more power you have, the more skeptical you’re going to be about someone coming along who wants to take all of it away. There have been false Lightbringers before. If you show up out of nowhere without undeniable proof that you are who we suspect, you might find yourself standing right at the fissure line of a schism. There have already been attempts to kill you, Breaker. Where do you think those have come from?”
One came from my grandfather, but he denied the others.
“Who else would even know you were alive?” Cruxer asked. “I don’t think the Color Prince would think you were worth killing when you first came here. If anything, you did him a favor by killing King Garadul and putting him in power.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
“So if not him, Breaker, who?”
The Order of the Broken Eye? But they were just assassins for hire, right?
So unless there were yet more unknown enemies out there, it had probably been luxiats who’d tried to kill Kip. But luxiats? Really?
“Hells,” Kip said. More enemies.
Then he was struck by the fact that of anyone, it should be Cruxer who had such a cynical view of the Magisterium. “Captain? Doesn’t it shake your faith, I mean, if it really was the luxiats who killed Lucia?”
Cruxer looked away. “My faith isn’t in men.”
Which didn’t leave Kip with anything to say.
But that had never stopped him before. “So,” Kip said. “If I’m never going to be a Blackguard, what do you think I should be using this time for?”
“Learn to kill. Learn to lead. Learn who your friends are, and then draw them so close to you that every time someone shoots a musket ball at you, it hits one of your friends and not you.”
“That’s … that’s a horrible way to think about friends.”
“Breaker, if you become a Color or a Prism, and a thousand times more if you become the Lightbringer, you’ll no longer be merely our friend. You’ll be our lord first. It is right and proper that we should die for you. It is our purpose.”
Suddenly, Kip felt like he was locked in that closet again, covered by rats gnawing, gnawing, gnawing at him. But now the rats were cares, worries, burdens, people he could let down, people who would die if he failed, people who would die even if he succeeded. He felt sick and claustrophobic, hot and cold.
“Knowing I would die for you, how would you live if you were worthy of that sacrifice? Live that way,” Cruxer said.
“Simple, huh?” Kip asked sardonically.
“Simple. Not easy.”
They sat in silence for a few more minutes. Kip pretended to be thoughtful, but the idea was so big it couldn’t bear the weight of someone looking at you and wondering how much of it you’d processed. So mostly, he sat there and pretended to think, and felt wretched and dumb.
When they got up to go, he said, “Should we follow their route to the safe house and check up on them, or should we go direct?”
“Let’s go direct. They got away clean.”
Chapter 45
Within three blocks, Teia realized she hadn’t gotten away clean. As invisible as she’d thought she was, someone was following her. There were tricks to this, as there were tricks to everything, but figuring out if you’re being followed was one of the things the Blackguard practiced. So Teia wended her way through the neighborhoods carefully. At first when she’d split from Big Leo, she’d moved at a fast pace. Not jogging, but clearly moving with purpose. At the fifth turn, she was certain: she was being followed.
It was odd. Big Leo would be a hundred times easier to follow. But maybe they figured Big Leo would be that much more careful. Or maybe they were afraid of him. Or maybe they’d followed him as well.
The man she s
uspected of tailing her was small. Laborer’s clothes, dark hair pulled back tight, and ratty beard adorned with dull beads. He carried a petasos folded in his hand. He was alternating putting the hat on and taking it off to make himself harder to spot as a constant presence behind her. Not a bad trick.
He walked as if he knew the neighborhoods—not glancing around looking for landmarks. When Teia slowed and turned back toward the neighborhood they’d left as if her guard were now down, he followed. That was when she was sure he was following her.
And this is where working with a squad is beautiful.
Teia almost grinned as she headed toward their secondary ambush point. It had been Cruxer’s idea, and Teia had been proud of his deviousness. He seemed so upright and good she’d worried he couldn’t be sneaky. Goss and Winsen would be waiting to incapacitate her tail. Ferkudi would be following one minute back. Daelos would take care of helping Big Leo. Kip and Cruxer would follow Big Leo if it looked like he was being pursued.
It was the right division of labor. No enemy would be going to send a man who couldn’t fight after Big Leo. Still, the two squad members who least inspired Teia’s admiration—or in this case, confidence—had to be Goss and Winsen.
As usual when they worked in town, none of them were to draft unless it was life-or-death: they couldn’t give away who they were.
Teia came around an alley and pulled her hood up. It was a brisk winter day, so it shouldn’t be too alarming to her tail, but the hood was her sign to Goss and Winsen that she needed scrubbing. She winced, though. She’d ducked around that corner, hadn’t she?
She walked down the alley, past Goss and Winsen’s hiding places, whispering, “Black hair, Atashian beard.” Then she kept walking.
Can’t look back, Teia. Don’t give it away. She took care not to duck around the next corner, but she did stop as soon as she was out of sight. She took a deep breath and drew a flat-bladed knife. She got down on her knees and extended the blade past the corner, trying to see in the reflection if a shadow darkened the entrance to the alley.
Nothing. Nothing she could see, anyway. She needed to buy a good little mirror for this.
She waited, certain she would hear the sounds of a scuffle, or a sharp yelp as Goss slammed the piece of wood against the man’s shins as they’d planned. They would rob him if they could, too, to make it appear random, but stopping pursuit was their first worry.
Nothing. Where is he?
As soon as Teia thought the question, she knew she was in trouble. She rocked back onto her feet, taking a squatting position from the kneeling one she’d been in. She began leaping to her feet even as she felt the arms close around her.
The man yanked her backward, stopping her momentum with an arm across her chest. Her reaction was instant enough to make any Archer proud: when you’re rarely as strong as those you fight against, you learn to change the rules. Instead of trying to pull against the man’s grip, Teia pushed hard into it: he had pulled her backward, so she jumped backward, too.
Surprised, the man careened backward, and they slammed into the side of a building together, the man’s body cushioning the blow for Teia. His grip relaxed, and she dove for the ground.
The last of his grip on her arm whipped her hand into the wall, though, and as they fell in opposite directions, they were suddenly both looking at her knife, dropped on the ground.
They both jumped for the knife that lay between them, and they both arrived at the same second. But where the man grabbed for the knife’s grip as they slammed back together, Teia was already grabbing for the man’s wrist. Not finding resistance where he expected it again, the man couldn’t stop the blade as Teia helped its upward momentum—twisting the man’s wrist at the last moment so he rammed the blade full into his own gut.
Shock lit his eyes as he felt the blade slide home, and that gave Teia the pause she needed to pluck the dagger from his fingers. Then they were pressed hard together. He reached around her back and embraced her. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled hard. His breath was hot and stinky on her face.
“Adrasteia the Implacable indeed,” he said. “Bless me, goddess. Bless me!” He laughed sickly, and held her tight.
What the— Where was Ferkudi? He was her backup. Where was he?
Teia was trapped. She panicked. Her knife hand was free, and she stabbed. Stabbed, stabbed, stabbed. Not artfully, not carefully finding the angles between ribs that she’d been taught through so many hours. She was flailing, flailing, screaming, barely aware of the sound of her own voice. Her vision went red, and all the world was close and hot and unbearable.
Someone was shouting. Shouting her name. She twisted, lashing out with elbows as the man slid down her body, grip weakening, but she hit nothing.
Someone ripped the little man off her. Ferkudi lifted the man in a hug, trapping his hands down at his sides. Then he ran at the opposite wall of the alley, lowering his shoulder at the last moment and crunching the man against the stones. The man dropped in a bloody smear, falling to the dirt.
Teia spun, crouched low, feral, knife in hand.
Goss and Winsen both stood there with their hands up. “Orholam’s balls, Teia, it’s us!” Goss said.
“Wow,” Winsen said. “You killed the shit outta him.” He sounded … appreciative.
Teia looked at the dead man. He was all rags and blood now. Blood matted his hair and his beaded beard. How had he got blood in his hair? She didn’t even remember cutting his scalp. She wanted to vomit, but instead she felt cold inside. Dead. A killer.
“You have a rag?” she asked quietly. “I’m a mess.”
Goss and Winsen looked at each other, looked at Ferkudi. Shook their heads in awe at the same time. That was funny. She laughed.
A stricken look passed over their faces, like she scared them. Oh, they thought she was laughing about killing that man. For some reason, that was hilarious, too. She laughed louder. She sounded crazy.
Then she walked over to the dead man. She found part of his breeches that were clean, and wiped the dagger carefully. Then she found a portion of the breeches’ leg and began cutting off a chunk of cloth. The young men both just watched her.
She stood, oddly more disconcerted by seeing the bare, hairy leg of the dead man than by the fact that he was dead. Why were some men so … so hairy?
Hirsute. That was the word. Meant hairy. Why are there two words that mean exactly the same thing?
She took the rag and began wiping her face. It came away bloody, sticky. She examined herself. She was wearing a light tan blouse. It had been light tan, anyway. Now, it was a wreck, bloody everywhere. All bloody, again.
“Ferkudi,” she said. “Give me your tunic.”
“Huh?”
“Tunic, moron.”
“Why?”
“Because you can walk out of this alley not wearing a tunic, and no one will remember it ten minutes from now.” She stared at him. He didn’t understand. “Versus me walking out of here without a tunic.”
A moment passed. Ferkudi’s face scrunched.
Goss said quietly, “Or her walking out of here with a bloody tunic, Ferkudi.”
“Oh!” Ferkudi said. He loosened his belt and peeled his tunic off.
Teia stripped off her blouse. Battlefield rules, right? She couldn’t even find it in herself to be concerned. ‘Oh no, my squad saw my stomach’? Blood had soaked through her short chemise, too, dammit. It was her favorite of three, the only one that fit just right. She unlaced and stripped that off as well. None of the young men looked. Ferkudi silently held out his tunic, eyes averted. But Teia didn’t take it immediately. She used clean areas of her tunic—most of the back of it—to wipe the obvious smears from herself.
Now she knew another reason why the Blackguard wore black. Hide the blood. Smart, that. She pulled on Ferkudi’s tunic, wrapped her belt loosely around the waist, and grabbed the dead man’s petasos. The young men stood around like rubes, doing nothing. She kicked her bloody clothes at
Winsen and said, “Fold those up, nunk. Ferkudi, you drag the body over there, hide it under the rubbish. Goss, kick dirt over the blood pools.”
The young men stood still for one long moment more, still stunned by the dead man at their feet.
“Orholam!” she swore. “Now. Now!”
That snapped them out of it. They moved.
And in two minutes, in staggered turns—different directions, different times—they departed the alley. No one tried to stop them. No one cried out an alarm. It was like it never happened.
Chapter 46
Gavin woke bound and gagged in the back of a wagon, and started laughing. These idiots had no idea—
That he was a Prism.
No more. Well, that left a bad taste in Gavin’s mouth. Or perhaps that was blood and scummy river water. The wagon slipped on a cobble and rattled him. Oh, Orholam, broken ribs.
Didn’t appear to be sticking out at any odd angles, though. So maybe just cracked. And he hadn’t drowned. So there was that. Didn’t think he’d go swimming anytime soon, though. Attack dolphins. What the hell was that? Dolphins were supposed to be nice.
He rolled over slowly, timing his roll with the bumping of the wagon, and was able to see through the side. The sun had risen high above the sole promontory that overlooked the great delta, and it illuminated all the vast farmlands that fed Rath and much of the rest of the Seven Satrapies besides. Looking at the Great River and the farmlands here, Gavin was for the first time appreciative of his handicap. Seen in black and white and gray, the visual cacophony of the city was muted. Gray-and-black buildings rose in front of the dazzlingly white river and farms but for once didn’t overwhelm or detract from that greater beauty.
It had been many years since Gavin had been in Rath during flood season. As a boy from their estate’s walls atop Jaks Hill, he’d marveled at the sheer expanse of water. Indeed, it still awed him. Every year, the Great River flooded so vast an area that maps—maps drawn at the scale of showing all seven satrapies—drawn at different times of year showed a different coastline. Nor was it merely the coast that was altered. As Gavin looked out, it was like looking across an ocean, with villages in the distance sticking out like tiny islands on a sea of glass. This late in flood season, the water was only a few thumbs deep, and all the silt had settled from it. When one talked about the Cerulean Sea being calm in the morning, one understood it was a comparative calm. In the early morning like this, the Great River was so calm as to be surreal.
