“But the world is a spoiled child; it cannot long stand guardians, even when it needs them most.”
The figures said all together, “We are the guardians. We are the hands of night. We are the walkers unseen. We are the sword of morning and the bludgeon of midnight. We stand ready. For war, for peace, for life, for death, we stand ready.”
My new friends, the insane vigilante drafter murderers.
“In this world perpetually on the brink, with only our hands to steady it, a young man came during a time of upheaval. New technologies were being discovered, and the balance was threatened on every side. He became a Shimmercloak, and he was, we soon could tell, among the greatest of us that had ever lived. Diakoptês, his name was.”
“Diakoptês, the Betrayer!”
“The Braxian lens-grinders were the finest in the world, and it was they who discovered how to melt metals into glass to make the lenses that would change the world. Pitchblende and lead for red, theion and calcium for yellow, cadmium and brimstone for orange, orpiment and iron for green, cobalt and theion for blue. These were to be our secrets, and our new power. No longer would we have only to rely on the seven teams, on trying to find new polychromatic light-splitters to make new shimmercloaks when the old ones were stolen or destroyed. Then came a young man. Diakoptês, his name was.”
“Diakoptês, the Betrayer!”
“Diakoptês the Shadow had killed for us in every one of the nine kingdoms. As famous for his temper as he was for his skill with blade and bludgeon. He began experimenting with black luxin, a color that can only be drafted by those with great evil in their hearts. He grew corrupt, and he lusted after power. We sent people to him, old friends to entreat with him. He slew them. He stole his people’s designs, the very jewel of Braxian industry and two hundred years of innovation, and he equipped an army with it. And with his armies, he brought the bloodiest war the nine kingdoms had ever seen. He crushed them under his boot, and called himself a savior. He named free men heretics and brilliant women beasts. We know him by his true name: Diakoptês, his name was.”
“Diakoptês, the Betrayer!”
“But you may know him by his other name. The name he took for himself to make himself a god: Lucidonius, the Giver of Light.”
Teia shouldn’t have been surprised that murderers and heretics should have blasphemous views of Lucidonius, but somehow, she was. Even the coarsest slave’s complaints about how Lucidonius had overlooked the plight of the slave still assumed that Lucidonius, being mortal, had merely overlooked them, not that he was evil.
She bit her lip and said nothing, looking from hooded figure to hooded figure. Last, she looked at the pile of things she’d stolen, sitting on the stool off to one side.
“The Magisterium teaches that we have but one life, one judgment, and one eternity. There is in them no mercy for those born to low circumstances, to only bad choices, as if the daughter of nobility and the daughter of ignominy have the same chances at a life of virtue. The Braxians were kinder, more humane. We know that…”
They intoned, “In death is the cleansing of sins. In rebirth is the hope for salvation.”
“He called himself the Second Eye of Orholam. And so it was that the Order to Break the Eye was born. So it was we slew our favorite son Diakoptês. Not in hatred, but in hope. Hope for his rebirth. Hope for salvation.”
Together, they said, “We wait with hope and expectation. Breakers unbroken, our Long Vigil continues.”
“Thus ends the sermon of the first circle. May we all be worthy to learn more.”
They chanted something in a language that Teia didn’t understand. Nor, it was clear, did some of them, from how they lagged behind the others with the unfamiliar syllables. Then, it seemed, they chanted a loose translation, not quite so rhythmic: “True in darkness. True in light. True in daytime. True at night. Honest, fierce, loyal, strong, but hidden till we right the wrong.”
The gruff leader came close, and lowered his voice enough that the others would likely only hear pieces of it over the whoosh of the bellows one of them was working. “You know what these are.” He picked up a silver bracelet, set it down.
“Things I stole on my mistress’s orders.”
“Blackmail,” he said.
“Blackmail,” she agreed.
He lowered his voice further. “Among the deceived, Adrasteia, you will always be a former slave. The highest you can rise is to be a Blackguard. It is a good position, for a former slave. Usually. Less good in wartime. Everyone knows that the Blackguards’ standards have slipped in order to replenish the ranks. You will be thrown at problems that the peacetime Blackguard would never accept. You will die for the White, perhaps, though this one is almost dead. She won’t last two more years. And who will replace her? Someone you can love and respect? Will you be happy to give your life for the Red? Is that the life you want? A slave exalted, but a slave still. Is that the best you can do?”
He nodded to two of the masked figures and backed away.
Louder now, he said, “We want you, initiate, but we won’t blackmail you into service. The Order isn’t looking for slaves. You can be a soldier to be used as cannon fodder for them, or for us you can be more. We’re looking for Shadows. We’re looking to give you a chance to make a difference. To change the course of all history. To pick up the pittance this world has given you and demand more, and in turn give more. There will be no work as hard as what we offer, but together we can remake the world.”
The figures stepped forward and set the silver items in a pitted bowl at the end of a paddle. They lifted it into the fire, and Teia watched as the silver wobbled, lost form, and melted, ready to be remade.
Chapter 39
“I want you to stab me,” Gavin said. He and the Malargos boy Antonius were standing on deck in the early morning light.
“Your pardon?”
“I’ve been stabbed by it before. Maybe twice.”
“Where?” Antonius asked.
“Off Garriston and off Ru. See? It’s even been on boats both times.”
“I meant on your body.”
“Oh, in the back, here, and straight through my chest, here.” They were still short on clothing, so like the rest of the former slaves, Gavin went shirtless. It had scandalized the young lord, who had offered his own garments, but Gavin couldn’t accept them, for reasons he couldn’t have said. Regardless, it meant that when he gestured to where he’d been attacked, he was gesturing to skin.
Antonius leaned close. “No scars. No scars?”
“I think that’s part of the magic. Well, it has to be.”
Antonius hefted the sword and stabbed it down on the deck. Its point sank deeply into the polished, fire-hardened wood. He looked at Gavin skeptically.
“I think it’s different, for me,” Gavin said.
He’d been doing a lot of thinking in the last day of freedom. First he’d thought of Karris, Karris, who had been so painful to think about when he was in the hell belowdecks. He could see her smile, the arch of her neck, her hair—blonde, now—and her tears of joy as they embraced once more. He could feel her fingers touching his face while he slept, assuring herself he was real. He could imagine nipping her fingers to startle her, and laughing together. He imagined her slim legs around his hips, her warm embraces—but then that, too, still hurt. His body had been hollowed out like a bowl for sorrows, and imagining pleasure filling it again was torture. He tried to imagine what she would say when she saw his eyes, instead. She had married a Prism. She had accepted the costs of being married to the most powerful man in the world, but she’d accepted the rewards, too.
He was that man no more. What he had promised was not what he was going to give her. What would she say to this withered husk?
I am not now that which once I was. What work of noble note might yet be done, by me? By this cripple?
That, too, was too cruel to countenance. So he’d thought about the musket-sword. It was the black in it that captivated him. It
looked like obsidian. But no one could work obsidian into such delicate spirals; the stuff wasn’t malleable. Obsidian fractured with hard, sharp edges. During the war, those who could afford obsidian had edged their arrowheads with the stuff, as it cut through luxin better than steel did. But few could afford it. That it interfered with drafting was known, though. Hellstone, drafters called it, thinking it darkness personified, a negation of light, and thereby a tool of the enemy.
Gavin had his—the real Gavin’s—men collect all the weapons lined with hellstone and any gems or decorative pieces, put them in a few crates, and had them ‘lost’ when they got back to Big Jasper. It was war, albeit the end of the war, and things go missing. He’d used that treasure to line the tunnels of Gavin’s prison beneath the Chromeria. He was very familiar with obsidian.
And this didn’t make sense.
“Can we try a little bit at a time, rather than just run you through and hope for the best?” Antonius asked.
“When you put it like that,” Gavin said, “that sort of makes sense.”
Antonius grimaced. He lofted the sword and extended it toward Gavin’s chest. “How about I hold the sword in place, and you can move forward as much as you want, and maybe the crew won’t keelhaul me for killing you?”
“Fair.” Gavin held the tip of the white-and-black sword to his chest. He leaned in—
—and jumped back, cursing, blood dribbling down his chest.
Antonius jumped back, too, eyes wide. There was a moment of silence, while Gavin rubbed at the wound. “So… that wasn’t how it worked before?” Antonius asked.
Gavin cursed louder, swore at the heavens. There was no way he’d been imagining it. At least not the second time. The dagger had been a dagger when he’d fought his father and Grinwoody and Kip for it, and a sword thereafter. Gunner had admitted that he’d pulled it out of Gavin’s chest—that Gavin had been fully impaled.
Maybe it only worked once. It took all your magic, and then it was done. But obsidian didn’t do that. It could drain luxin from your blood, sure, but it didn’t stop you from ever drafting again. Not even all obsidian did that.
“Can I try it on you?” Gavin asked.
“You said it took away your ability to draft,” Antonius said.
It wasn’t as if Gavin had wanted to tell him, but there hadn’t been any way to avoid it, either. The boy had asked him to draft some repair to the galley, and Gavin had no lie ready for why he wouldn’t. “That’s right,” Gavin said. “It’s a guess, of course, but the events correlate.”
“So you want me to give up my ability to do magic to satisfy your curiosity?” Antonius asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to help, but… Maybe we could wait and try some other way?”
Gavin sighed. He couldn’t exactly blame the boy. “It’s almost first watch. Time’s up. We need to decide.”
Yesterday, in their initial exuberance and fear, they’d simply rowed until dark to get away. None of the slaves had thought to use sextant and compass to find their position, and it had been overcast. Antonius Malargos said they were between Rath and the Jaspers, two days out from Rath.
The crew gathered on deck. Many of them had slept on deck, not trusting that someone wouldn’t come and lock them to an oar once again. In the growing light of the rosy-fingered dawn, they took their places.
Antonius spoke first. “This day, we must decide our destination. We’ve food and water for what? Five days? I’ve heard tales of your rowing prowess, and I’m sure you could reach half the coast of Blood Forest and half the coast again of Ruthgar. But there are only two viable options: go to Big Jasper, or go to Rath.”
“Why would we go to Rath?” someone asked.
“You left out the third option,” someone else said. “We can keep pirating. Sun Day’s coming, all sort of fat fish in the water for us to take.”
“Listen to me!” Antonius said. He was too fearful, too young. He thought he was losing the sailors’ attention. He wasn’t. They simply wanted to taste their freedom a bit. What could make a man feel more like a free man than interrupting his betters without consequence? For men who’d lived under the lash, it was fine wine.
“I’m offering you freedom, and more,” Antonius said. “My cousin, Lady Eirene Malargos, is fair and rich and connected. If you land in the wrong city, you’ll be seen as fugitive slaves, game for anyone to recapture. You land somewhere worse, and you’re mutineers. You could be hanged or ’hauled. My cousin will give you papers, filed in every capital. Freedom. Never having to run again. It goes without saying that we split the cargo. Even shares for everyone. No share for me, though I rescued you. All that, and fifty danars each.”
“We want to keep the ship, too!” someone shouted out.
“The Bitter Cob will be sold and the profit divided up with the rest of the shares,” Antonius said. “That’s the only way everyone gets an even split. If some of you want to go in together and buy it, that’s your business.”
Gavin stood up. “Lord Antonius,” he said, inclining his head. “I want you to know how much we all appreciate you and your actions. We’ll make sure you’re amply rewarded. However. I’m not really sure why you’re even trying. We’re going to Big Jasper, because whatever you offer, I’ll double.”
The men cheered.
But Antonius held up his hand silent, waiting. Someone shouted, “Shut yer yaps, ya rabble, let the lord drive the price up!” The men laughed, but eventually quieted.
“Two things,” Antonius said. “One that you know, and one that you can’t. First, you all know Eirene Malargos’s reputation. She is a tough trader, but she always keeps her word, no matter what. Second, in normal times, Gavin Guile could indeed double whatever she and I could offer you. In normal times, I know Gavin Guile would honor his promise to us, though we all know that the Guiles have earned their surname anew a thousand times each generation.”
That was a bit too complicated a construction for the sailors. These were simple men. But Gavin didn’t interrupt. Let the boy play his gambit. Gavin was ascendant once more. This was his game. He wasn’t going to have a crew he’d served with for months be taken out from under him. He wouldn’t allow it. He saw Orholam staring at him, his prophet eyes intent.
“But these are not normal times. As I heard from you all last night, Luxlord Andross Guile stabbed his own son and threw him overboard.” He paused. “I tell you now that the luxlord has not been idle since his son has been gone.”
Men were looking at Gavin, and he felt dread rising in him.
“Andross Guile has been named promachos,” Antonius said. “And he has consolidated power in a way that even Gavin Guile couldn’t do during the False Prism’s War. He doesn’t want the enemy son he thought he murdered to come back. For your own sakes and for Gavin’s, the last place you want to go is Big Jasper.”
It took Gavin’s breath. In that moment, he knew it was true.
And, too late, he realized that they had only Antonius’s word on this. But these sailors, not schooled in oratory, many of them unable even to read, were able to read a face. Gavin’s undisguised dread was a confirmation of everything Antonius said.
“But Gavin is the Prism. That’s gotta count for—”
“Is he?” Antonius said. “I know you believe he is. I believe he is, too. But if he came into Big Jasper and his father’s men seized him, and he shouted, ‘I am the Prism!’ would they not say, ‘Then draft, Prism, save yourself, prove yourself!’? He can’t draft. He can’t prove who he is. Gavin is our friend, and our Prism—aye, I believe it! But now, in wanting to go home, he is like a drunk friend who wants to swim across the sea. It is not a good friend who encourages that drunk to swim. Prove your friendship to Gavin, and your devotion to your Prism—by not letting him throw his life away.”
Gavin had no answer, no counter. His golden tongue was too heavy to make words. He hadn’t thought it through, had been too busy thinking about the wrong things. He’d been outmaneuvered by a boy. He was slipping. He was
lost.
“Tell me,” Antonius said, “what happens to the simple sailor who comes between two warring giants? I tell you what doesn’t happen. A simple sailor doesn’t get paid double. He doesn’t get rewarded. He gets killed outright. So tell me, who wants to head to Rath?”
Chapter 40
Kip didn’t know why he was surprised. He’d thought once he got into the restricted libraries his problems would be solved. As if merely because you’d had to fight for something that meant it was good. The truth was harder to find. The books were filled with accounts the luxiats didn’t want read, but finding exactly what Kip needed—when he didn’t know what that was—was far harder.
The forbidden library had become the squad’s second home. When Kip wasn’t training with Karris or attending lectures or training with the Blackguards, he was here. If Andross Guile had been initially irritated that Kip had used his writ to get all of his friends access to the library as well, he’d been placated when Kip reported how the luxiats had been secretly defying the promachos.
Kip was sure there were some very unpleasant discussions between Andross and the High Luxiats after that, but of course he didn’t get to see any of that. He was also glad to see that Andross had blocked any direct vengeance the luxiats might have wanted to take on Quentin. Not that the young scholar took much hope of that. “Light never forgets,” he said.
“Huh?” Kip asked.
“It’s how we say luxiats have long memories,” Quentin said, not even looking up from some boring tome of archaic theology. Quentin mostly filled his time doing his own research, exploiting the access Kip had given him to restricted materials for a treatise he was writing, but he’d also become a vital resource and good friend to the squad.
“Orholam have mercy,” Cruxer said. He’d finished his own studies for the day and had been helping Kip search for books on the black cards. He sat back from the scroll he had unrolled in front of him.