The Burning White (142 page)

Gavin? “Gavin!” she cried.

Her husband stood with his toes on the very edge of the tower, his hands cartwheeling as he tried to keep his balance.

“Uh . . .” he said. “Hi, honey. Help?”

Then, before she could move, he plunged out of sight.

She was at the edge the next instant, as if she hadn’t had to cover the intervening space.

She looked down, afraid of seeing his broken body beside her brother’s far below, but instead she saw Gill Greyling. He’d almost climbed the entire tower, coming after her—and now he’d snagged Gavin out of the very air.

Twisting as he held Gavin’s wrist in his hand, the Blackguard said, “I lost one Gavin, sir. I’m not losing another.”

And then she was helping hoist her husband up the tower. The battle immediately below them was finished—the Blood Robes had broken at the sight of their master leaping to his death.

And then her husband was up, and safe, and in her arms.

The dawn was glorious, but there were a million things to do. But none of them mattered right now. The feelings were too big to hold in for one more moment.

She had never cried so hard in her life.

“Will you . . . uh, will you look at my eyes?” Kip asked Tisis. He’d thought that it was simply the night, bleeding the colors from the land as it does, but the rising light of the incipient dawn was making it clear. There was something wrong with the colors; they were wan and weak. He said, “I blew my halos. On the Glare. It’s been really nice holding and being held by you, but now . . . I have to know.”

Tisis took a deep breath. She’d hadn’t looked in his eyes since the beginning. But as she looked at him now, she seemed relieved. “They were stark white, right after. All the way through. Now they’re blue. Just your natural blue.”

“No halos at all?” he asked.

“No, none.”

“Well . . .” he said. “That’s, um, great. I guess.” He wasn’t going to have to be Freed in the next few days, so that was something.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I can’t draft,” he said quietly. Grief speared through his stomach. That was why the colors felt weak, emotionless. His vision now felt as impoverished and textureless as a drafter’s vision is compared to the immortals’. He was seeing the way munds do.

“What?” she asked. “No. Maybe you’re just tired? Lightsick?”

He shook his head, forcing a smile. “My life was spared, but not my powers. I’ve tried every color. They’re gone. They’re all gone.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth.

He could’ve been the Lightbringer; now he couldn’t even draft. He was a mund. Many drafters would have preferred death to that. He would have, a year ago. He looked away. “Do you think—do you think you can love a man with broken eyes?”

She didn’t get mad at him, which he would have deserved. She only squeezed him tight.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again.

“Me, too,” he said, wiping his eyes clear. He took a deep breath. “And now let’s be done with that.” He was almost surprised that the words rang true. “I think . . . I think I’m kind of finished with self-pity. It probably should’ve taken less than
dying
to figure out how good I’ve got it, but I do. I’m here. With you. So I’m a mund. So what?”

“A mund?” she objected, a smile turning her lips at last. “Kip Guile, the last thing you are is
mundane
.”

Did you think I would forget you, little Guile?

“Huh?” Kip asked Tisis. She and Commander Fisk were helping him stand.

“I didn’t say anything,” she said.

He was wobbly, but maybe he’d recover quickly if he walked around a bit. “I think I’ve figured something out about myself: I really hate watching a battle.”

The view from the elevated platform was excellent. Though Ebon’s Hill hid everything in Weasel Rock and Overhill, Kip could see West Bay and East Bay and the still-burning fires at the Great Fountain. The predawn light was just beginning to tell the tale of how much damage the Blood Robes had done to the city. Smoky plumes rose from numerous areas, but Karris had stockpiled water and firefighting supplies, and organized neighborhood teams, and it seemed those fires weren’t spreading. The rattle of muskets was still constant, sometimes in volleys, but more often in crackles around the entire island. Few of the cannons were firing at this hour. Most had either been silenced or were waiting for the dawn to better reveal their targets.

The superviolet, the blue, the yellow, and the green bane had been destroyed. As far as he could see, the rest were still afloat. He didn’t want to think what that probably meant for Ferkudi and Ben-hadad. He wanted to rejoin the fight, but he knew Commander Fisk and Tisis weren’t going to let him do that. Probably they wouldn’t have let him fight even if he started turning cartwheels. But they were right, he was in no shape for any of that. He was useless.

It was not a good feeling.

Now, what was that voice he’d imagined?

“What was
that
?” Tisis asked.

“What?”

“In the water!”

But whatever it had been, Kip missed it—and turned his aching head and burning eyes as far as possible while doing so. He immediately regretted the action. All right, definitely not in any state to fight. He might as well volunteer to go fall on an enemy’s spear.

“It went right past the Lily’s Stem,” Tisis said. “Here I was about to suggest we get back to the Chromeria to be safer, but . . . if that thing hadn’t turned it could’ve taken out the bridge without even noticing.”

“A sea demon?” Kip asked.

Then he heard a throaty boom of some huge cannon and turned. Few other cannons were firing now, and none sounded like
that
.

“What was that?” Tisis said. “I think I know that gun. Orholam’s beard, is that The Compelling Argument?”

“The what?”

“My sister tried to buy it off a merchant Phineas something maybe? He wouldn’t sell, and said he’d never make its like again. Swore it was destined for someone else, but demonstrated it for her to try to drum up other business.”

Kip could only see a wisp of smoke in the air in the direction he’d heard the blast. Sometimes cannoneers wrapped burning sackcloth around a shell to be able to watch its trajectory. In a few more moments, he was rewarded with another shot, arcing identically to the first, to thud into the sub-red bane.

Commander Fisk had a long-lens to his eye. He handed it to Kip with an odd look. “Please tell me I’m not crazy.”

In the half-light, though, it was hard to find anything.

“Find the old Tyrean embassy. Couple points right of it, halfway out in the bay,” Fisk said.

“Where’s his ship?” Kip asked. For in the water, there appeared to be a ship’s square forecastle, moving at speed, undulating, floating without the advantage of a ship. A man danced to an inaudible beat, with hot points of light burning in his beard as he loaded a huge cannon all by himself.

“
Gunner?
” Kip said. What was that forecastle resting on?

Gunner fired again, then jumped up on the barrel of his big cannon and danced from one foot to the other, eyes straining as if waiting for something. He pumped his arm as if successful, though at what, Kip had no idea.

A moment later, the entire sub-red bane
exploded
. Light flashed over the islands and a cloud mushroomed in the early morning, smoke rolling in on itself.

“Did he just—?” Tisis asked.

“He sure seems to think so. And—is Gunner on top of
a sea demon
?!”

“Not sure,” Fisk said.

But whatever it was, Kip wasn’t going to see it, because Gunner and his floating forecastle disappeared behind the Tyrean embassy.

“Enough. This one is under my protection!” someone shouted.

Kip looked around. It was a familiar voice this time. But there was nothing to be seen. A feeling of foreboding came over him. “Rea?” he said. “Rea Siluz?”

Tisis looked at him. “Who?”

“Nothing,” Kip said. “Were you going to go wrap that wrist and get some poppy?”

When Aram had deflected her pistol during her attempt to shoot Zymun, he’d sprained her wrist. It was very swollen now, but she hadn’t wanted to leave Kip, hadn’t left all through long hours of the morning.

“Yeah.” But she looked at him oddly.

“Commander Fisk?” Kip said. “I’ll stay right here, promise.”

As they went, Kip walked to the very edge of the platform and craned his neck. A rain of burning embers was still drifting down from the sub-red bane—luckily for the city, most of it was landing in the water. Kip could just barely see Gunner’s forecastle—now resting on the seawall of East Bay. The pirate was gesticulating furiously, but he didn’t appear hurt, and the forecastle deck was leaning at an angle as if it had been dumped off the sea demon’s back.

Kip stepped back, and something brushed his shoulder.

There was no one on the platform with him, but that touch made his whole body tingle. He looked at his shoulder. The sleeve was cut open—and
smoking
. The barest line of blood welled up as he gripped his arm.

The premonition he’d felt suddenly resounded again in his gut with all the urgency of a sick man who’d ignored the first belly twinge and now was about to vomit.

Abaddon.

He tilted his head back and saw—and he saw in glorious, weighty, more-real-than-real color, because as he was drawn inexplicably, inexorably into that overlapping realm by the great immortal’s presence, he was seeing not only with his physical eyes, but he was seeing as
they
saw.

As Kip’s eyes focused on this other world, he saw Abaddon, king of locusts, spinning a tight loop in the air, something like a black blade seething in his hand.

Rea Siluz staggered near Kip, her arm drooping, and he could only guess that she had just deflected a blow from him.

And not for the first time.

But she didn’t pause. She leapt instantly, faster than human thought, bringing up a blazing sword—

The concussion of their collision blew away Abaddon’s illusory body and face. The black, smoking fragments dazzled Kip’s eyes but not Rea’s. Abaddon beat her back, and with hammer blows of sword on sword and sword on shield, the immortal battered Rea out of the air like a man swatting a moth to the ground.

She fell to the street below the platform, elegant armor scraping on the cobblestones, baffled, afraid.

Ten paces out, the two Mighty nunks looked around as if they’d heard something. But they hadn’t been drawn into the bubble; they couldn’t see them.

The locust thing that was Abaddon drew Comfort, his mother-of-pearl-handled multichambered pistol, and shot rapidly at Rea’s prone form.

Rea blocked the shots with shield and then sword, getting knocked back and back, finally falling to the cobblestones. She looked more shocked at his power than in fear for her life, though.

Smoke curling lovingly from his pistols around his body, he paused in firing, not to reload: that pistol never needed reloading. “Concede this world to me, Aurea.” He gestured to his pistol. “This is no Sundering Blade, but if I kill you with it here, you can still never return to this realm. Go. Tell yourself that you’ll be back someday. I’ve won today.”

Why was he telling her that? There must be some shred of a chance Rea could still win, or he wouldn’t be giving her a chance, right? Or was there some old affection between them that Kip couldn’t even guess at?
Aurea?

Rea looked at Kip, and he could swear he saw an apology in her eyes.

Then, taking advantage of her distraction, Abaddon fired at Rea, but she’d already winked out of the space where she’d been lying a moment before, fleeing.

She’d abandoned this world.

But then it made sense, didn’t it? If there really were a thousand worlds, that left nine hundred and ninety-nine more for her to fight for, didn’t it? One battlefield lost didn’t mean much, on that scale.

The nunks who were supposed to be protecting Kip seemed to have heard the final shots or the ricocheting of the musket balls off the street, because they charged toward the platform now.

And died, instantly; their heads obliterated with a single shot each.

Abaddon holstered his pistol and landed on the platform in front of Kip. He didn’t bother to re-form the illusory mask of a human face, instead staring at Kip out of the same insectoid monstrosity that Kip had last confronted in the Great Library.

Some part of Kip had really, really hoped that was a hallucination brought on by the cards.

“You hoped I’d forget you?” Abaddon asked, a rusty voice from a throat not made for human phonemes. “You thought you might triumph here?”

“Yes?” Kip said.

Abaddon’s face clacked and chittered. Kip had no idea what emotion that was intended to convey. Then the creature said, “Where is my cloak?”

“It’s right over there. Can’t you see it?” he asked, pointing to the far side of the platform.

Abaddon’s fist lashed out and cracked Kip’s ribs. He fell and almost tumbled off the platform. He groaned, holding on to the corner post, staring out to East Bay in the half-light.

Rea, please tell me I’m not really alone here. Please.

“The master cloak. Where is it?”

“You’ve made a big mistake,” Kip said, facedown, woozy. “Huge. Gigantic.”

Gunner was out there, so far away Kip could barely see him, standing as if he was holding a long-lens up to his eye. With the hand out of Abaddon’s sight, Kip tried to gesture to Gunner: ‘Shoot here, yes, here!’

“Me?” Abaddon said. “No, no, no. You have no idea, do you? This battle was never about Koios and this little empire. It was about the fate of this entire world. Even now your Wight King calls out for our aid—and will get none. The djinn have been freed from his control. The bane will grow again—in a single day, with my help. We’ll inspire such bloodlust that these barbarians will scour these Jasper Islands. Massacre everyone. Even now, look! Are your worthless mortal eyes keen enough to see the black sails of Pash Vecchio’s fleet on the horizon? The pirate king comes with our reinforcements, and what do you have? No one comes for you. You’ve been abandoned. What’s your last hope? Some sea demons? Do you know how weak those really are against the right magics? It’s been a defense worthy of song. But none will sing of what you did here. None will be left to do so.”