It became a race, Kip and the night mares trying to head them off before they cleared the walls.
But within half a minute, it became clear it wouldn’t be much of a contest. The archers lining the walls rained down shots on the fleeing Blood Robes, mostly missing, but killing a few and injuring more, slowing those who stopped to help them. The line elongated and separated completely.
Those with horses abandoned the others.
But Dúnbheo was vast, and Kip and the Mighty had the angle. They reached it a hundred paces before the end of the wall.
Now if those idiots up on the wall can just not shoot us.
It was a thought without rancor. Men long bored and suddenly excited who held weapons in their hands could get careless with whom they pointed them at.
On reaching the wall, Tallach wheeled and stood on his hind legs. He roared fury.
Tallach didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with his brother. Musket fire and explosions from the camp—and the lack of Lorcan’s reappearance—didn’t bode well for how Conn Arthur’s brother was doing.
“Halt, halt!” the man mounted at the lead shouted to his bodyguards.
‘Man’ might have been generous. He was a blue wight, dressed in gaudy gold robes, skin sparkling with facets like snake scales.
“Lord Guile! Lord Kip Guile!” the wight shouted, holding his hand up.
Tallach dropped back to all fours and roared again. The Mighty thundered in to surround Kip even as Lord Kamal’s own bodyguards surrounded him in a sudden flood.
“Lord Guile! I, Amrit Kamal, Lord of the Air, do challenge you to a duel!”
His men were hurriedly reloading muskets they’d discharged in the fighting.
“Yeah. No,” Kip said.
The Mighty fired their muskets immediately, perforating the Lord of the Air in as many places as possible. Waves of fire and missiles followed before Lord Kamal’s bodyguards could counterattack.
That was enough for everyone else behind Lord Kamal. They doubled back and, fleeing, made easy prey for the Mighty. The Mighty hadn’t been able to do much fighting in this battle, and they were eager to make up for lost time.
Chapter 65
“This, finally, is a cruelty beyond me,” Andross Guile said. “You deserve it, but this is beyond what I am willing to do. You can’t be released, and I won’t punish you any longer. How do you wish to die?”
Gavin had felt a change in the air. It could mean only one thing. His cell opening.
He hadn’t spoken to the dead man in days. Didn’t want those cold comforts. And the days or weeks had blended together. Another thunk of bread falling, another slice of crust against black luxin. Another sleep. Nightmares passed to hallucinations, like paired dancers spinning a gciorcal. Gavin had no energy, couldn’t plan, couldn’t concentrate. The isolation was driving him slowly mad.
But now he could hear his father breathing. From old habit, Gavin looked in sub-red, and he could see the man so brightly (though in white tones rather than red) it almost blinded him. Gavin looked down, blinking.
He didn’t want to laugh—it would seem proof of his insanity—but he couldn’t help it. His father’s words were an exact echo of his own thoughts, again, regarding his brother: You’re too dangerous to release, so I’ll imprison you. Your imprisonment is too cruel, so I must kill you.
His father had arrived at the logical conclusion much faster than he had, though. Give him that.
“Fuck him,” the dead man said. It was the first time he’d spoken in a while.
Gavin said, “I’ve murdered hundreds. Maybe thousands. I don’t know if there is an appropriate method of execution for me.”
“I was thinking starvation. Or poison. I can’t imagine I’ll ever have to use this cell again, so either would serve. I could simply leave you here to rot.”
As I did my brother. Or didn’t.
Could you be guilty of things you thought you were letting continue but really weren’t?
Andross said, “I’m going to make a light. I would see your face one last time. Don’t humiliate yourself and embarrass me again by trying anything.”
The dead man said, “Listen to me. You can escape. This is your chance.”
A moment later, light bloomed. Gavin squinted against the glare, but the light itself didn’t command his attention. First, eyes averted from the lantern his father produced, he saw the black luxin. There was barely any reflection off that eerie black. The light that touched it simply died. He cast no secondary shadow from refracted light, and his primary shadow was barely visible, greater darkness against darkness.
Then, pupils constricting, he turned to his father.
“This was a mistake,” Andross Guile said. “I don’t want to remember you like this, this hideous ghost of what you once were.”
“Too late now, isn’t it? I got my memory from you, after all. You don’t forget, either,” Gavin said.
“I suppose not,” Andross said.
“If you were simply going to put me down like a mad dog, you’d have done it without this much bother,” Gavin said. “You came down to say something.”
Andross smirked, but only for a moment. “I suppose I haven’t dealt with madmen enough. Losing your wits doesn’t mean losing your wit, eh?”
The dead man grew more insistent. “Why aren’t you listening to me? Are you frightened, Gavin? Gavin Guile? Frightened?”
“Frightened only of what I might do,” Gavin said below his breath.
“What’s that?” his father asked.
Louder, as if merely repeating himself, Gavin said, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“How soon did your mother know?” Andross asked. He meant after Sundered Rock.
“Instantly.”
Andross cursed. “Of course she did.”
“Gavin,” the dead man whispered, “you have a way out.”
“When did you figure it out, then?” Gavin asked.
Andross said, “On the seventh year from the real Gavin’s ascension. We had figured out that you—the victor of Sundered Rock—had drafted black luxin, of course. I chalked up all the changes in you to that, and to killing your brother. Would have shaken anyone. But then you never even asked about doing the ceremony again. I didn’t believe that you could have forgotten that.”
“The Prism ceremony?”
Andross waved it away. He wasn’t interested in explaining. “And then, once I could accept that you’d fooled me, it all became obvious. Audacious, though. You played it perhaps as well as it could have been played.”
“Mother coached me.”
“Of course she did.”
“And when you figured it out, there was nothing for you to do but go along with it,” Gavin guessed.
Andross turned his palms up in a small surrender. “Gavin was dead and others believed you were he, so what could be done? I could mourn him. I could make you pay, but what would that accomplish?”
As if you didn’t make me pay.
“We have a way out,” the dead man said.
“I’m sorry, father.”
Andross Guile looked at Gavin as if he were suddenly speaking in some foreign tongue. “We’ll pretend you didn’t say that. I came here for one reason.” He stopped, shook his head. “No, what am I doing here?”
He’s lonely.
The thought tore through Gavin. For some reason, looking at this monster, Gavin felt a sudden unwonted compassion.
He’s lonely. Mother left him. His sons are dead. He’s recovered his health and vitality, but it is nothing to him. His last son insane, and even Kip has fled.
“Let’s play a game,” Gavin said.
“A game?” Andross asked skeptically.
“You always loved games. You and your Nine Kings. You can’t tell me that you haven’t missed matching wits with me. Witless as I may be.” Gavin grinned.
“What kind of game?” Andross asked, suspicious but obviously intrigued.
“Gavin!” the dead man
said. “You don’t need to put yourself at his mercy. Andross Guile’s mercy. Andross. Guile’s. Mercy.”
Gavin said, “You tell me about some of the problems facing you, and I try to guess what you’re doing about them. Of course, you have to give me enough relevant information to give me a chance. We’ll call the game, Which Guile Rules the Seven Satrapies Better?”
“There are several weaknesses to this game,” Andross said.
“There are weaknesses to every game,” Gavin countered.
Andross obviously missed sparring. He didn’t think too long before saying, “To clarify: in the game, you’re guessing what I have done, or will do, not what you would do in my place? After all, we have… somewhat different strengths.”
“Exactly,” Gavin said. Anything to keep from going insane. Anything to give himself more chances. Anything to make him valuable to the old man might give him an opening.
Growing more irritated, the dead man said, “You don’t need to do all this.”
“I can play this game,” Andross said. “You know who the White King is?”
“Koios White Oak, unhappily back from the grave.”
“And you know what he is?” Andross asked.
Gavin stared at him blankly, not sure what his father was asking. “A polychrome? A man remade with incarnitive luxins?”
Andross sighed. “Are you playing dumb, or did you cut yourself so deeply?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Gavin said. This was not starting well.
Andross sighed. “I was hoping you might be useful, in this one thing at least.” He waited, apparently to see if he’d called Gavin’s bluff about being ignorant. Then, nonplussed, he said, “You are not the only man alive who can draft black luxin. Merely the only one on the Chromeria’s side.”
“Koios is a black drafter,” Gavin said as it dawned on him. Of course.
“He’s taken your old path to power. Except, of course, he doesn’t glean his powers from already dying drafters and wights.”
My old path to power? “So you think I’m the Black Prism, too?”
“Too?” Andross frowned. “You didn’t tell Karris about this.”
“No. Orholam, no. I didn’t even remember any of it then. I…” It cut him to think about her. It was impossible. Hopeless.
“Then who else calls you that?” Andross asked.
“Never mind that.” Telling his father about the dead men was a sure way to cut this conversation short. His father would think him mad in truth.
Andross looked amused to have this imprisoned wretch tell him what to do, but he let it go. “I more thought of you as a light-splitting black drafter. If you want a more grandiose title, I suppose the Black Prism fits.”
“Are you sure?” Gavin asked.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“About me. I don’t… I don’t remember any of that. I didn’t seek out people to kill them for their magic. It wasn’t like that. Was it?” Gavin said.
He thought he’d done all that to save people. That he’d put himself in harm’s way for the satrapies. That he’d been at least a little… good.
“You really have forgotten it all, haven’t you?” Andross said. “What’s the alternative? That you’re Lucidonius come again? You’re the Lightbringer?”
“Mother said I was a true Prism…”
“Your mother loved you very, very much. But you were her last child, and you were a blind spot for her.”
There was something odd in how he’d said that. Irony aside, though: Gavin was Felia Guile’s blind spot? Go to hell, father.
“Her last child?” Gavin asked.
A pause. Then Andross said, “Not witless, indeed. There is still some spark of you left in that shell, isn’t there? Well, I had planned to tell you eventually. No time like at your end, I suppose. Do you remember that prophecy? The day the Mirror Janus Borig told you that you would draft black luxin? She told me, ‘Of red cunning, the youngest son, cleaves father and father and father and son.’ You remember?”
“I remember.”
“There was this librarian. She had access to some documents we needed. With your mother’s permission, I seduced her. Naturally, I was careful. She shouldn’t have gotten pregnant. She swore she’d take the tea to abort it if necessary. She lied. Showed up in our camp pregnant and with demands. Your brother didn’t take it well. She fled.”
There were so many things wrong with what he’d just said that Gavin couldn’t even begin to parse them. Andross had cheated on mother? And what pathetic lie was this that she’d approved of it? She would never do that!
“What documents would be worth such a thing?”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“You’re certain the girl wasn’t lying?”
“I presumed she was lying, of course. But over the course of time, I’ve become sure she wasn’t.”
Gavin was incredulous. “Are you telling me I have a brother out there?”
“When she sent you your note, she sent me one, too.”
“Sent me a note? I never got a note—You can’t mean—Lina?!”
Andross said, “She took the name Katalina Delauria when she fled, apparently. Lina. Kip isn’t your brother’s son. He’s mine.”
Out of all the things that should have leapt to Gavin’s mind, what he thought first was how odd it had been that when his mother had come to Garriston for her Freeing, she hadn’t tried to meet Kip. Hadn’t so much as inquired after her only grandson.
Because she knew. She knew Kip wasn’t her grandson. She knew he was Andross’s bastard, and she had no interest in having that rubbed in her face.
Dear Orholam. Kip.
The funny thing was, it didn’t really matter, did it?
Instead of being the boy’s uncle and pretending to be his father, he was actually his half brother, acting as his father.
If anything, that should make things easier, shouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be, ‘I’m not your father, and by the way, I killed your real father and took his place.’ Now it would be, ‘I’m your half brother.’ Full stop. Kip already knew that the Gavin who was still alive had killed his own brother. Without the weight of being the real Gavin’s own son, Kip would be freed of a son’s burden to avenge his dead father.
But then, it didn’t matter regardless. Gavin was here. He was going to die in this black cell.
“This doesn’t have to happen,” the dead man said.
“Are you going to tell Kip?” Gavin asked.
“Someday. Maybe. It’s a card I’ll keep for the right moment. Maybe if he gets too sanctimonious with me. It’ll be fun to see the look on his face.”
“Why’d you tell me?” Gavin asked.
“I thought you deserved to know. You seem fond of the boy. I wanted you to know I’ll look out for him.”
Gavin could tell that his father was drawing this to a close. Not just for now. Andross wouldn’t be coming back.
“Draft black,” the dead man hissed. “Kill him.”
“Look out for him?” Gavin said. “You’ve tried to kill him twice!”
“The assassin was when I still thought Lina was lying, and I was hoping to hide Kip’s existence from your mother. As for a second time—you’re counting when he attacked me on the ship after the Battle of Ru? He was trying to kill me, if you recall. I was only defending myself, and I was in the grip of red. Speaking of which, where’s the knife now?”
“I haven’t seen it since I jumped…” Gavin started laughing quietly. “You asshole.”
“Pardon?”
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? This whole conversation. Give me so many things to think about that I’d slip up. Orholam’s balls, father. If you wanted to know where the knife was, why didn’t you just ask?”
Andross didn’t deny anything. “I have an island, off Melos. Small house there. Excellent though small library, including many forbidden books. Stocked with enough provisions for you to stay there for years. Impossible to appro
ach if you don’t have the chart, though. Terrible reefs. You go into exile there. I’ll even let you take a couple of slaves. But you never leave, and you never try to send a letter out. You’re dead to the world, you understand?”
“And in return, I give you the Blinding Knife?”
“You really have no idea what it is, do you? We can’t make Prisms without it, son. The Seven Satrapies will dissolve. The False Prism’s War will look like a village fair compared to what comes next.”
“You can balance manually, by dictate. It’s been done before. The satrapies can stand.”
“We’re already doing that. It’s failing. We don’t have enough people obeying to make up for those who don’t. What happens when half the satrapies are pagan? When you’re a blue drafter and a firestorm lays low your village because the Chromeria’s suggestions are ignored, will you obey their call next year to stop drafting blue so that those sub-red bastards who killed your family will be safe?”
“Maybe the Chromeria deserves to fall,” Gavin said.
“Oh, most certainly. Our regime is the absolute worst way to rule, except for all the others that have been tried. The Chromeria is an idea, son, and if it’s exposed as a hollow one, civilization falls. Not only to magic, but to the cycle of retribution and the Nine Kings. Drafters reviled by their own families if they happen to be born to draft the wrong color, drafters moving to a satrapy where they can be strong. Kings trying to stop them or killing them to keep them from going. Tyrants. One king after another rising as his people’s magic waxes, rampaging across the kingdoms that have wronged them, massacring drafters of other colors. The terrible magic storms and plagues. The collapse of that king as his color’s magic fails, and then the rise of his neighbors, doing the same, and wreaking vengeance on his people in turn. That’s the alternative. For thousands of years that’s what was. That’s what we stand against.”
“He’s not going to let you out,” the dead man said. “Once you give him what he wants, he’ll kill you.”
It was probably true. Would Andross really let Gavin go? Would he trust that he could smuggle Gavin away from the Chromeria itself? What if the smuggling failed? Would he put himself at risk that way?