The Burning White (45 page)

“Surely I can—”

“I need to go. You want to know everything I have on Gavin or not?” Teia said.

“Of course.”

And then Teia reported about the ship and their conversation and the impossibility of reporting it all immediately.

Karris could tell Teia wanted to leave more with every passing minute, but she quizzed her on the Old Man of the Desert, whom she’d seen disguised. “Could it be Andross Guile?” she asked finally.

Teia shook her head. Andross had hired the Order before, and perhaps he was cunning enough to pretend to be someone else while hiring his own people, but no. “It was a good disguise, but there are things that are really, really hard to fake. This man or woman isn’t as broad as Andross Guile is. You can add padding to affect a silhouette, but moving in the same way a larger person does, that’s hard. So I think this person is probably thin, disguised with some padding, or maybe average with layers of jackets and the fine mail that breaks up paryl, but he or she isn’t broad-chested and wearing all those layers, too. And the man had a presence about him, so I don’t think it was a lieutenant standing in for the real Old Man. I think some secrets are so big, the Old Man attends to them himself. Or herself.”

“And they threatened me?”

“To get . . . your husband to go along with them. A threat that I believe is credible. They do have people here, in the ’guard, I’m sure of it.”

Karris breathed a heavy sigh. “I didn’t think that . . . your masters were going to be a bigger threat than the White King.”

“Not my masters. And not for long,” Teia said. “I hope.” She made to move to the door. “Oh, shit. One more thing. I realized we were so rushed before that I didn’t tell you.” She lowered her voice. “Ironfist. He was in the Order.”

“What?!” Karris said.

“I don’t know if he is anymore. Apparently, he joined them when he was a kid so they’d protect his sister from their family’s enemies. And I guess they did. Then with me killing her, he thinks they betrayed him. Even though she was trying to murder him when I did kill her, he was . . . He was scary as hell. You ever see a man lose everything he’s given his life for, all at once? I hadn’t. And I’ve never known a man like him.”

Me neither.

“It took me a while to put it all together, but . . . you know, he betrayed us in order to save his sister. Then his sister failed and betrayed him, and his brother died for us, and the people he betrayed us
to
then betrayed him.” She got pensive, seemed to forget her urge to leave so quickly for a moment. “You know, not to do your job, but if he finds out you knew I was going to assassinate his sister, and you let me . . . ? He won’t be too happy.”

Karris was reeling, but her first thought was horror. Oh, Ironfist, what have we done to you? In every part of your life, we’ve destroyed you.

What have you done to yourself? Joining the Order?

In ordering Teia to assassinate his sister, the Nuqaba, the Chromeria had betrayed him, but he’d betrayed them first.

Well, sort of. He hadn’t known Karris or Gavin or any of the Blackguards when he’d taken his vow to the Order, had he? No wonder he’d held himself aloof, not just from Karris but from any woman. He’d known he was a hypocrite of the greatest degree, that he might be called on to do reprehensible things. He’d lived with that terrible, terrible secret and shame.

Then her gut sank as she realized what a new and horrible twist this put on them potentially marrying.

O God, protect us.

“Yeah,” Teia said. “Sorry I didn’t get you the news earlier.”

“No, it wouldn’t have changed anything.” Except I would have felt rage first, rather than compassion. So maybe it was for the best.

“It’s like your best friend dying, isn’t it?” Teia said, her voice softer.

“I’m sorry for all this, Teia. But . . .”

“They’re a blight. I know. It’s gotta be done. And I’m the only one who can do this. Doesn’t seem fair, but there it is. Now, sorry, but I really do have to go. Can you distract your door guards?”

“Hmm?”

“Invisible, not incorporeal,” Teia said. “Can’t float through things, and people tend to notice a door opening and closing by itself.”

“Oh, right, right.” Karris got up and threw on a robe. “You, uh, you haven’t asked for your orders.”

Teia looked at her quizzically, a shadow of derision returning to her sharp young face. The girl rubbed her cheek over her dogtooth as if it pained her. “Orders? An arrow in flight doesn’t need orders. I’ll return to you bloody or not at all.”

She threw her hood over her head.

She was going to leave without another word. Karris grabbed her by the wrist, wishing she could shake some sense into the girl, wishing everything between them had been different.

“Nonetheless,” she said gently. She rummaged through her desk and grabbed a paper. “Same code as usual.”

Teia snagged it and tucked it away. Her cloak shimmered—and she was gone.

Karris went and opened her door to give Teia room to get out past the Blackguards. “Pardon me, Essel, could you check and see if any of my chamber servants are awake and would bring me some kopi? I hate to wake them at such an hour, so if none of them are up, it’s not really necessary . . .”

Essel smiled. It had taken her a worryingly long time to recover from being knocked out the day Gavin had been kidnapped, but she was finally her old self again. “They
are
your chamber servants. That’s what they do, High Lady.”

“High Lady?” Karris said. “Essel, don’t talk to me like we haven’t danced the
gciorcal
on tables till past dawn together. One of us without a shift under her skirts.”

“Yes, High Lady,” Essel said. “I’ll go check. You think you can keep it professional around here for one minute, Amzîn?”

“Yes, Watch Captain!” the young man said. “I will not stand here and wonder which of you was dancing without her shift, sir.”

Essel stifled a laugh.

Karris raised her eyebrows, and young Amzîn blanched.

“I changed my mind,” Karris said. “Amzîn, there’s a kopi seller named Jalal on the back side of Ebon’s Hill where the two main light-well streets intersect. Opens early. Go find a Blackguard in the barracks to cover the rest of your shift. Then I want you to run to the kopi seller and bring back as much hot kopi as you can carry. As quick as you can. I hate it lukewarm. Until your brain is faster than your tongue, your feet are going to have to be faster yet.”

His mouth worked once or twice, but then he was off like a shot. Running so far was easy. Running so far carrying a hot drink? And being expected to bring it back before it cooled?

Essel came back to her post, “That . . . might have been my fault. I’ve been telling the boy stories of the old days of all the trouble we got into.”

“Any of them true?”

“One or two,” Essel said. “He’s been terrified of you since his last gaffe. And the others have been none too gentle on him. They all feel like he’s trying to take Gav Greyling’s place. He’s not, of course. But you know men at war. Not always fair.”

“No, they’re not.”

“Nor women, neither.”

Karris gave Essel a sharp look. “All right, all right. I hear you. I’ll ease up.”

“Just a little.”

“Just a little,” Karris said. “So, uh, which version of that story did you tell him?”

“The true one,” Essel said, “where you were the one half-naked, and I was trying to convince you to go home.”

“You wicked little liar!”

Essel just laughed.

Then she said, “Actually, after all this time, I can’t remember which way is true. Or did it happen more than once?”

“More than once. For you,” Karris said.

“Doing some work tonight?” Essel asked.

“Yeah.”

“Want me stationed inside instead?”

Karris wanted the company, but said, “No. It’s, um, no . . . not tonight, friend.” She didn’t know what was in the folio. No one should know it even existed.

Essel nodded, and Karris could tell her feelings were bruised. But Essel was a professional. She asked immediately, “Want me to send to the kitchens for some kopi? It’ll be at least an hour before the kid gets back. With lukewarm kopi, I’d guess, too.”

“Sure,” Karris said. “But don’t let Amzîn know, would ya? Just in case. That old man’s kopi really is the best.”

Essel reached to close the door, then hesitated. “Gav was a great kid. I miss him, too.”

Karris took a deep breath, letting the sorrow flow through her. “I miss a lot of us,” she said.

Essel nodded, though there was a flash of sorrow there. Even between them there was a bit of death, a gap of secrets held, old trust between comrades abrogated—not by malice but by duty and war. She went.

* * *

In the next hours as Karris read, over perfectly hot kopi—it turned out Amzîn was a sub-red—the worries and tribulations of the night faded away as her attention was seized wholly by the advice and the stories the Whites before her had left to help her. Here were lessons from hundreds of years of women and men who’d led and protected drafters through the reigns of Prisms great and good and wretched and bitter and venial (not just one or two of those having reputations from other sources that differed widely from what the Whites past reported). But then they began referring to things that Karris couldn’t understand. Sections were missing. There were blank lines, perfectly erased. Later Whites had clearly tried to piece together what was missing, obviously as perturbed as Karris was now.

And the revelations came in, like waves pounding wet sand in Karris’s heart. And a new dedication, a new direction, and a new mission was born as the night yielded to the dawn in a single-breath prayer that broke from a chrysalis of horror and blasphemy at Karris’s lips. “Oh my God,” she repeated, as she flipped the pages one by one.

“Oh my God.”

It wasn’t a reverent salutation beginning some sacerdotal benediction; it was the curse of a warrior who’d just taken a mortal wound.

“Oh my God.”

It wasn’t the hushed intonation of a supplicant seeking divine favor; it was the shock of an officer coming upon the scene of a massacre, with his men standing, bloody, near the innocent slain.

But given time, horror fades, and repetition makes what was unthinkable now normal; the monstrous is made manageable. For mankind adapts to every horror.

This can’t have happened.

This happened but not often.

This happened often, but this happens no longer.

This happens still but not often.

This happens often, but this is what must happen. This is what someone must do.

This is what
I
must do.

This is what I will do.

I am doing this.

I have done that, and it is what you must do in your turn.

“O my God,” Karris said, “please, please, save us.”

And the words were that commander’s grief, as he held a dead child in his arms, at finding out the massacre hadn’t been committed by some mortal foe but by his own men.

“O my God, save us from what we’ve done.” Save us, Orholam, from
You
.

~The Guile~

38 years ago. (Age 28.)

“This is like no prophecy I’ve ever seen, Andross,” Felia says. She is nineteen years old and heavily pregnant with our first child. A son, she thinks. I’ve always wanted a girl first, to take care of me in my old age. It’s a disappointment I can’t hide from her, but she forgives me this, as she forgives so much else.

“I should hope not. This one might cost me drafting for thirty-eight years.”

She ignores that. Through another scroll we discovered when it’s likely the seal on the Everdark Gates will fail. That, plus this scroll, gives us either that the Lightbringer already came, years ago, and no one noticed; or that he is still to come thirty-eight years from now. So in order to see the prophecy fulfilled—if this prophecy is true—we’ll have to
live
another thirty-eight years. That means giving up drafting. Not exactly how either of us wants to live.

She sighs. “For a prophecy, that which hasn’t been redacted is so clear. Which makes me wonder if it’s somehow deceptive. You understand. You’ve seen the others: even the ones we know are from true prophets brim with phrases like ‘when brother turns against brother, and men put power over religion’ that obviously apply to every era. True, but useless. This . . . this is so different, it doesn’t surprise me that other scholars have questioned its veracity, its provenance, even the prophet’s sanity.”

She’s translated the scrolls for us. Felia has a knack for all learning, and with her charm and familial connections, she’s had the opportunity to study every discipline that has captured her interest with its foremost scholars. She is like unto a desert, leaving men once fat with knowledge desiccated. She is a hooded lamp, never bragging of her brightness, but taking for fuel everything that comes to the hungry wick of her intellect. She is now doubtless one of the great linguists of our age, and few of the others even suspect it.

Holding the ancient scroll in my hand, I ask, “Is any other translation possible?”

She chews on a finger. We both wonder if she’s missed something, so she goes through it phrase by phrase to see if I have any questions that might shine light on something she missed.

She says, “ ‘
If upon that day
,’ or ‘at the time,’ a constrained time, but usually it means ‘on the same day’ ‘
when the Everdark Gates open full.
’ That’s pretty clear: the Gates will have been open to some degree before then—and I do know that the translation of ‘Everdark Gates’ is certain; I’ve seen it elsewhere in even older scrolls. Unless you want to go really recursive, and say that ‘
the Everdark Gates
’ means ‘the gates of hell,’ since we know that’s how they got their name in the first place.”

“Let’s not get too deep here,” I say. “The whole premise was that this prophecy is remarkably unambiguous.”

“For a prophecy, yes,” she said. “But you’re right. Here we go: ‘
and the bane touch the Jaspers
’ is when the bane—plural, no note of how many—literally touch the Jaspers. If on that day, ‘
there stands no Lightbringer
’—again, ‘Lightbringer’ is used elsewhere, no ambiguity—‘
on the Jaspers’ shore
’—not necessarily literally standing, it’s often used colloquially the way we do: the Lightbringer is there, on the Jaspers, possibly literally on the shore of one island or the other. They didn’t call them the Jaspers then, but they referred to the islands in a manner that was consistent. They thought of them as four islands, including Cannon Island and another low island that is believed to have been sunk when the Everdark Gates closed and the sea rose. I have translated that bit as ‘the Jaspers’ for simplicity. ‘
Then shall the Chromeria fall.
’ In this context, ‘fall’ seems to mean both figuratively and literally. ‘
As a river of blood pours from the Prism’s Tower
’ is simply, ‘As a river of blood pours from or around a tower the Prism in some special sense climbs’—thus, ownership: ‘His or her tower.’ The same word for tower is used again in the next sentence.”