by Brent Weeks
Kip could feel his future slipping away. “No,” he said. He wasn’t sure, at this moment, if he would have handed them over regardless.
No, that was a lie. He would have. He was that much of a coward.
Andross Guile sighed. “Do you know that I really did want to make you Prism? I was ready to groom you, to give you, the bastard from a backwater village, seven years as one of the most powerful people in the world. I would have made you, the fat little orphan, the most admired man in the world. From there, you could have possibly extended your reign, were you competent enough. But you’re not much of a Guile. Not enough to hide your ambition and take my orders for a short while. You’re too stupid to play the game at its highest levels. I was going to give you a task next: you against your brother. Whoever won would be Prism.”
“The promachos doesn’t name Prisms.” Kip was parroting Quentin, though.
Andross Guile merely smirked.
“But you can orchestrate such things,” Kip said, heart sinking. I knew I was right to be skeptical.
“What do you think I’ve been doing the whole time Gavin’s been gone? What do you think I’ve been doing my whole life?”
Setting things up. Destroying and sacrificing people as if they were cards, as if all that mattered was the game.
“What was the task going to be?” Kip asked.
“To destroy the green bane and bring me something from it.”
“What?! I already destroyed the green bane!”
A smile lit Andross’s lips. “Oh! You are learning. Look at that. An effort that took thousands of people, and you easily inserted yourself into the story as the hero—as if you’d done it all alone. A noble’s trick, that. A dirty one, but time-honored. Congratulations. Fact is, the green bane is reforming or has reformed already. You botched the job. You need to take the seed crystal from it, or it simply grows again.”
Kip was gutted. “So all we did … the destruction of the whole navy. The whole Battle of Ru. The capture of Ruic Head. The deaths … they were all for nothing?”
“It was a setback for our enemies. They had the seed crystal, the green bane, and an Atirat. They lost them all—but we didn’t gain them.”
The idea of going back to fight the green bane again was like being asked to voluntarily get back in a closet full of rats. “So that’s why you looked so inept.”
“Pardon?” No one applied the word ‘inept’ to the Guile.
“You took the navy to Ru and did everything wrong—if you were trying to save the city. You didn’t care about the city,” said Kip.
“Had we saved the city, but lost the bane, we would have lost the war. And lost the city, too, within days.”
“But you didn’t care that you lost it. That’s the difference.”
“Yes, please. Given unlimited time and perfect hindsight, tell me how you would have directed our forces so that all would have been well. Regardless. You dithered, and Sun Day is upon us. You won’t be the next Prism.”
The words echoed in Kip’s head: ‘You won’t be the Prism,’ Janus Borig had told him. Plain as day. That wasn’t how prophecy usually worked, was it? It was usually all obfuscation. Smoke and mirrors and darkness and flashing lights to blind the unwary. When it was just stated, did that make it more certain, or less?
Kip wasn’t certain how much to believe Andross Guile, though. Sure, it was one thing to go hunting the bane, but why sacrifice your whole fleet to do it? If you saw a trap, you sprang it with a few ships, not your whole fleet. He may well have been hunting the bane, but that didn’t mean he had godlike perspicacity. And he’d been a red wight at the time. That had to have clouded his vision, made him impulsive. Perhaps he was only lying to himself now, telling himself that the losses had all been part of the plan.
Kip opened his Blunderbuss to say so. Shut it.
Andross Guile continued. “But now you have another choice: marry Tisis, go with her tonight. I will provide a luxiat who will marry you in secret because he believes love conquers all. Whatever you tell her at first, I don’t care. But as time goes by, you will make her believe you’ve fallen in love, and do your best to make her do the same. That’s vital, you understand? Then, you stay with her, reporting to me from time to time. Eirene Malargos has big plans, and I’ve been unable to get a spy close in to learn them. You serve them, pretending to hate me. Your half brother will become the Prism—but Prisms usually only last seven years. You can wait, right? You’ll have a beautiful wife; you’ll have riches; I could even allow you to take your little friend Teia with you to guard your back, or your bed, whichever.
“At the very worst, Kip, it gets you out of Big Jasper alive. I know there have been attempts on your life—and those haven’t come from me. I don’t believe the attempts will stop if you remain here. What you need is some time to get away, to grow up, to marshal your powers and your skills. You’re sixteen and you’re starting to see who you will be. But you’re not that man yet, and there are challenges here to which you are not yet equal. If you take care how much you draft, in a few years you can come back as the head of the foremost Ruthgari house if not the head of the satrapy itself, and a full-spectrum polychrome.
“Then we publicly make peace and reunite, and all that I have will be yours. Marriages are often made to make peace and cement alliances, and yours would do both, both in the short term and in the long.”
“I just have to become your spy.”
“Yes, yes, staying alive is such a dirty business, isn’t it? Perhaps you should leave it to others,” Andross sneered. “You have to become my heir. You’ll be serving the promachos and the satrapies, not just our family. Such is only right.”
“Then why does it feel wrong?” Kip asked.
“Because you’re young, and you haven’t learned the difference between a twinge of conscience and a twinge of fear. In other words, ass from elbow.”
“Oh, no,” Kip said. “In my time under your tutelage, I’ve become quite adept in recognizing an ass.”
“Then you ought to do well when you meet Two Gun Ben.”
Given that Kip had only heard of the captain minutes ago, he was too shocked to keep it off his face.
“Oh, yes, I know all about him. He’s not a transporter; he’s a slaver, and too cautious to ransom the slaves he takes back to their families. You go with him, and he’ll clip your ear and put you on an oar. We’ve had quite enough of that in this family, don’t you think?”
“I—”
“Your friends aren’t as clever as you hope, Kip. Nor are you. Speaking of which, whatever you choose, before you go, I will have my cards. This is not optional.”
A jolt of real fear shot through Kip. “I already told you. I don’t have—” Kip said.
“Not optional. You must—” And to Kip, his face suddenly twisted, replaced by a much younger Andross Guile, young and strong, standing in his own manse, addressing his thirteen-year-old son. ‘You must do this, Gavin. All our family, all our satrapy, all the world, and all of history rests upon you. In the blinding glare of his responsibilities, a Guile doesn’t blink.’
Then Kip was back, and Andross’s face was tight, suspicious, and old. “Kip, show me what’s in your pockets.”
“You won’t listen,” Kip said. He couldn’t even take joy in the fact that the cards were in the bureau and not in his pockets. Small victory indeed.
“I won’t listen to lies, boy. And I can tell you’re lying to me.”
And a lie bloomed, and Kip saw a narrow hope. “Lying because I’ve been afraid of what you’ll do. Now I just don’t care anymore. I saved her life, grandfather, if only for a few minutes.”
“Her? Janus Borig?! I knew it.”
“Someone sent assassins after her—not ordinary assassins, but assassins who could make themselves invisible. I came in while they were still robbing the place, and I could see them in sub-red. They didn’t expect me to be able to see them, and I got lucky. I killed them both, but we triggered some of her tra
ps, and the place caught fire. I tried to carry her body out, and she was still alive. She made me get the assassins’ cloaks, and then on our way out, she stopped me again. She grabbed this.” Kip wondered what insanity had gotten into him, but it felt like the only way. He dug out Janus Borig’s card box.
Andross Guile’s eyes lit with hungry fire. He reached for the box, but Kip didn’t give it to him. “Why is it broken?”
Of course he cared about the cards first, and not the woman. Kip said, “She died before I carried her two blocks away. I came and gave my father the cloaks and—”
“Cloaks? Plural?”
“Yes,” Kip said. He couldn’t help it. His lies wouldn’t have the ring of truth if he didn’t give his grandfather a whole lot of real intelligence. Of course, any of this could be a trap. Maybe his grandfather already knew all of this and was expecting the lie.
“And I gave him the cards. I took a peek first, of course. There was name after name, so many it was overwhelming. But it was the very night Gavin got back, and he found me, and took the cards. I didn’t see them again—until today.”
“You’re telling me you found these today?”
“I swear it on my hope for light.”
“Give them to me!”
Kip shook his head. “You don’t understand. I would have brought them to you. After looking at them, of course. After writing down all the names. Maybe after viewing a few of them. But maybe not even that. Janus told me she put traps on the cards that would flay a man’s mind.” Kip blew out a breath, and it wasn’t pretense. Whatever had happened to his mind, it had felt like flaying. He didn’t think he’d seen the last of whatever it was that had happened. “They were hidden in Gavin’s training room. When I found them…” He handed over the box.
Andross Guile’s brow furrowed. He hated not understanding things immediately. He handled the box like it was an asp. He put it on the table, pulled on his gloves, noted the box’s broken side, and opened it gingerly. When nothing happened, he examined the back of the top card minutely. “Definitely her work. I’d spot a counterfeit.” He looked up at Kip. “Congratulations, boy, perhaps you have some hope of being Prism after all.”
Kip just shook his head.
Andross scowled. He flipped over the top card. His head cocked as he saw the blank on the other side. He flipped another card. Blank. Another, another. He cut the deck in half and looked at a card there, then another. He flipped the entire deck onto the table and fanned them out. Every last card, blank.
“No!” he screamed. “No!”
Kip’s door was flung open and two Blackguards were inside in a blink, each with a knife drawn for close-quarters combat and spectacles on, drawing magic. Looking for a source of attack, and alighting on Kip.
Andross held a hand up and waved them off immediately. It was Gill Greyling and Baya Niel. “Out!” Andross ordered. “Out now!”
They sheathed weapons and left immediately. Andross Guile obviously tolerated no less. They didn’t even apologize for intruding, which Kip guessed was the price Andross Guile paid for always treating them so poorly.
Before the door had even closed, Andross said, “What have you done? This isn’t what I demanded. This doesn’t make you Prism.”
“I’m telling you,” Kip said. “I found them like this. After months of searching, I find them like this. After all the threats you’ve thrown my way. I finally find them—and they’re blank. I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“You destroyed them.”
“I’m still scared of that old lady, and I saw her die. I didn’t dare mess with them. She was crazy. I saw the traps she laid in her own home. Fire traps, when there were barrels of black powder everywhere in her home.” Don’t go on too long, Kip. Let the hook stay in the water.
Andross looked at Kip skeptically. “So either Gavin destroyed the cards, accidentally or on purpose, or someone found them since, and did the same, accidentally or on purpose. You found these where?”
“In the middle of a heavy bag, in Gavin’s exercise room.”
Andross thought. “So, unlikely that someone else would have hidden it there, unless Ironfist is making a play. Of course, he’d be much more likely to trigger a trap. No. Gavin. That’s how he knew about…” Andross’s eyes lit suddenly, and Kip knew he’d swallowed it. It fit some narrative in his own mind, and he’d almost given Kip information by thinking aloud.
The weakness of a spider: it sees every dangling thread as part of a web.
“Name every card you can remember, boy. It may be I can glean something from the very names or the inclusion of certain men or women.”
“I saw them only briefly,” Kip pleaded. “Six months ago.” Oh, Orholam have mercy, even saying the names might … might flay his mind. “Fine, fine. I remember a few.” He sat down and closed his eyes to make a show of trying to remember, but really because he thought he might get dizzy again. “Shimmercloak.”
His vision swam and he was following Niah’s perfect ass down the dock on his way to assassinate Janus Borig. He swallowed hard.
“It said something like, ‘If lightsplitter…’ I remember it because I’d never heard of a lightsplitter before. I’ve been afraid to ask any of the luxiats or magisters about—”
“Not interested in your interpretations. Names,” Andross Guile said.
“Zymun the Dancer,” Kip said. And he was standing on the deck of a great barge, looking at Gavin Guile’s back, trying to make himself look more frail and younger than he was. He fingered the knife secreted under his tunic, picking his moment.
“Zymun?” Andross asked. “Do you remember that one? What did it look like?”
“I thought you weren’t interested in my inter—” Kip shut up at the look in Andross’s eyes. “I don’t remember what he was doing, but it was Zymun. It was definitely Zymun.”
“Damn you for turning the cards over to Gavin and not me,” Andross said.
“You were trying to murder me at the time.”
“Next! The Malargos girl will be coming anytime now, and I can’t be here when that happens. Quickly.”
It was like choosing to plunge your hand into fire. How smart was Kip? He had to give the list fast enough so that his grandfather wouldn’t think he was sorting them, had to give enough of a list so that his grandfather would think he was giving him all that he remembered, but not so long of a list that he’d be suspicious why Kip would remember so many, and if they weren’t a good enough list of surprising and unsurprising cards, he would know. He would know. And Kip had to do all this while his head split and hallucinations danced around him every time he spoke. Oh hells.
“New Green Wight. Incipient Wight. Flintlock. Sea Demon Slayer,” Kip blurted. That last. That damned pirate. That was Gunner! “Shimmercloak. Uh, sorry, said that already. Um, Dee Dee Falling Leaf. Usem the Wild. Aheyyad Brightwater. Samila Sayeh.” Kip was going to throw up. He was forgetting who he was. “Mirror Armor. The Fallen Prophet.” He almost said Black Luxin and the Master. “Skimmer. Condor. Viv Grayskin. The Butcher of Aghbalu. Incendiary Musket. The Burnt Apostate. The … the Angari Serpent.”
Andross listened with a quiet intensity that told Kip he was memorizing all of it. All of it, on one hearing. The man was infuriating. Finally, Andross spoke. “So you have something of the Guile memory, if nothing else. Good. Did you see Orea Pullawr or any of my sons?”
“Orea?”
“The White!” Andross said, terse, impatient, frustrated.
“No, no. I looked for my father, but I never saw him.”
“So some cards are still out there,” Andross said. “Still intact. Maybe.”
For some reason, Kip found that funny. Andross was so certain of his own judgment. If he thought someone was important, he had no doubt that they would have a card. My judgment and the judgment of history will be the same, he thought. What an ass.
“One last question,” Andross said. “Did you see a Lightbringer card?”
Janus Borig’s fa
ce was unnaturally pale, luminous in reflected lightning-light. ‘I don’t suppose you grabbed my brushes,’ she asked. ‘Because I know who the Lightbringer is now.’ And then she died.
“It was … it was me,” Kip said quietly.
Faster than most men would have been able to process shock alone, Andross Guile’s face went through shock, insult, and settled on rage. “You lie!” he barked, sinews standing taut on his neck. He stepped forward, as if to strike.
“Of course I lie,” Kip said. His tone said, ‘You moron, I just wanted to see you dance.’
He saw his disdain like a tuning fork ringing Andross Guile’s rage, which went from hot to cold in an instant as he realized he was being taunted. But Kip wasn’t done. “And obviously, you lie, too. You’re the one who brought up the idea of me being the Lightbringer. To torment me. I know there’s no such thing. I know how you work, you old cancer.”
“You really think you can outsmart me? Me? I know what you and your father are doing, Kip. Have known, since you claimed the epithet Breaker. Clever, to set it up as you did. Clever, to have another give it to you. Clever, using the Blackguard habit of nicknaming to take it, and to take a tertiary translation that might slip past the luxiats yet look so obvious in retrospect. But clever isn’t enough, boy, not against me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kip said. But it was a lie, and he felt the blood draining from his face, from his head, leaving him lightheaded on top of sick and dizzy and pained. He wouldn’t have known, yesterday, or two hours ago. But now … He who tears asunder, renderer, shatterer, destroyer. Breaker was the most pedestrian and vague of translations for Diakoptês.
“Aha.” Andross looked triumphant; he’d seen the lie on Kip’s face. He was in control again. “Well, I’m sure Gavin put you up to it, and it speaks well of you that you’ve continued to play it quietly in his absence, in case he came back. We’ll discuss this fraud more, in time. For the nonce, only one thing matters: your choice. I gave you one task, and a prize if you accomplished it. You failed. Consider it a miracle I don’t have you killed. Your half brother will be named Prism-elect at dawn. At midwinter, he will become Prism. There is nothing you can do to stop this or take his place. No doubt your squad will greatly enjoy guarding him against threats like you.
