The Blinding Knife (18 page)

The worst part of it was that it made sense. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t chosen to be a bastard, but it did make sense.

“Remember, Kip,” Magister Kadah said quietly, “you’re not untouchable now.”

What?

Ben-hadad raised his hand, rescuing Kip, and Magister Kadah called on him.

“Isn’t that a bit dogmatic?” Ben-hadad asked. “With the whole color spectrum being so wonderfully
not
even,
not
regular, not arrayed right around the seven colors, doesn’t that suggest that there’s room for ever greater understanding? I mean, what about the other resonances?”

Other resonances?

“I already said we’ll talk about sub-red and superviolet later.” The brief, ugly look that passed across her face told him that she had hate enough in her for Ben-hadad as well. Here Kip had thought he was special.

“Your pardon, Magister, but I didn’t mean those. I meant the secret colors,” Ben-hadad said.

Teia buried her face in her hands.

“Friend of Kip’s, are you?” Magister Kadah asked.

“What? No. I mean, not really.” Ben-hadad scowled as if that came out harsher than he meant. “I mean, I barely met him.”

“Uh-huh,” Magister Kadah said. “This is one of the early lectures. It’s to cover basic topics. Yes, there are other, weaker resonances. Some believe, as I do, that the use of those resonances are examples of man forcing nature to do things Orholam never intended. Some even call those who use the unnatural colors heretics.”

Kip couldn’t help but glance at Teia. She was pale, but her jaw was set.

Magister Kadah said, “The seven colors are in Orholam’s will. The seven are strong. This we know. If you want to have fifth-year debates, you can wait until fifth year.”

Kip caught up to Teia on the way to Blackguard practice. “What was that all about?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately. Didn’t look at him.

They came to the lift and had to wait, and Kip thought she wasn’t going to answer him, that he’d somehow been rude without knowing it. He would have started up a conversation about something else, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You know how you’re a superchromat?” she said quietly.

“Freak,” he said. Though other than making him different, as far as he knew, it was a pure advantage, with no drawbacks. “And how did you know?” She wasn’t in his engineering class.

“Everyone knows everything about everyone here, Kip, especially about the new kids, especially when the new kid has a grandfather who’s a Color… or a father who’s the Prism.”

Oh.

“Anyway,” she said, setting her scarf on her head to pull back her hair, but still not making eye contact. “I’m a subchromat. Color-blind. It happens as rarely for girls as superchromacy does for boys, so I’m as much of a freak as you, but you’re a freak in a good way.”

“But, but, how’s that work?”

“Reds and greens look the same to me. Sometimes, I try really hard and convince myself I can tell the difference. But I can’t.” She flushed, as if she hadn’t meant to say so much. “Our lift.” She gestured.

“But what’s that got to do with the secret colors?”

“Nothing.”

“And what are the secret colors?”

She stared hard at him. “Our lift, Kip.”

“Do you draft one of the—”

“Kip!”

They got on the lift. An older student took care of counterweights. They didn’t let first-year students operate the lift. Too many fatalities, they said.

Not reassuring.

“So, while we’re trying to join the Blackguard, what is everyone else doing?” Kip asked.

“Work,” Teia said. “And after we’re done, there’s
practicum
until dinner. Then another work period every other day of the week. On alternating days, they assign readings. Color theory, mechanics, drawing, religion, arithmetic, hagiographies, politics, lives of the satraps, that sort of thing. It’s a lot of work to maintain the Chromeria, and they say it’s good for us to know what all of that work is, so that when we take over one day, we know it all.”

“What other kinds of work are there?”

“For dims? Mostly cleaning. Every floor, every window, every study mirror. If you’re unlucky or being punished, you get latrines or stables or kitchens. If the older students are busy, we help in the jobs that take more skill or are more physically demanding: lifting the counterweights and the water, manning the great mirrors, carrying magisters’ books back to the libraries. Later still, students who are rich or have good sponsorships are able to bring slaves to do their work for them. Or hire servants or poor students.”

Like you, Kip realized. But not like me, not anymore. A Guile would definitely go into the rich category.

“You should have some sponsors coming around soon, Kip. Just make sure you don’t sell out cheap. They’ll act like they’re your friend, but at the end of the day, they don’t care about you. They’re just scouts, and they get paid out of the difference between what the sponsor is willing to pay and what the drafter is willing to take.”

They emerged from the Prism’s Tower into the sunlight. Kip said, “But I’m not going to have to worry about a sponsor, am I? I mean, I thought my father was going to pay for everything.”

She stopped dead. “What are you talking about?”

Kip raised an eyebrow, lifted his hands, befuddled. “I already told you I’m a Guile. I mean, a bastard, but my father has recognized me.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You mean you don’t know? I thought that’s why you came and sat with the rejects today.”

“What are you talking about?” Kip said. His throat felt suddenly tight.

“Andross Guile disavowed you. And he’s the Red. His word is law. That’s why you don’t have a Blackguard escort anymore. That’s why you have to work with the rest of us. That’s why Magister Kadah treated you like she did. You’re like everyone else now, Kip. Except with more talent. And a lot more enemies. You’re not a Guile anymore.”

Inexplicably, Kip laughed. It was the best news he’d heard in weeks.

The Third Eye was, Gavin thought, quite beautiful for an otherworldly mystic. Her light brown hair hung in dreadlocks, pulled back on top with a spiky sandalwood crown, points lacquered with gold leaf. A very artistic sun, perhaps? Light brown to go with her hair; she had to have some Ruthgari blood in her for that. She wore a knee-length white dress, secured with golden ropes, wrapped around her body ingeniously in order to cross over the body’s power centers in old pagan mysticism. Loose ends dangled from the last knot at her groin, the next crossed over her belly, the next crossed between her breasts, the ends looped over her shoulders. Gold makeup crossed her cheeks to her lips to suggest a knot there, and a few last streaks suggested a knot at her third eye in the middle of her forehead. She wore a bracelet on each hand connected to rings on each finger—sort of a fingerless glove—gold, suggesting knots there. Her sandals, covered now in sand as she walked the beach, would doubtless be the same.

Seven knots, or nine, depending on how you counted. It was a pagan paradox.

Heresy, maybe, but what it reminded Gavin of most at the moment was that he hadn’t had sex for far too long. The knots might be religious symbolism, but the practical effect was that they pulled the
dress tight around a fine-looking woman. He glanced at her breasts, briefly, then back to her face. Damn woman, not fighting fair.

He’d thought that she must have more gold paint on her forehead from how it glinted in the rising sun, but as she came to stand before him with her motley bodyguard of ten men, Gavin saw that the Third Eye had the most elaborate, remarkable tattoo he’d ever seen.

The third eye tattoo wasn’t merely exquisitely drawn, it glowed. She’d infused yellow luxin into the tattoo: it caused the eye to emit golden light, making it even more reminiscent of Orholam’s Eye, the sun.

Her own eyes declared her a yellow drafter, yellow near the halo, a pretty brown beyond it. She was in her late thirties, trim, but curvaceous.

Gavin glanced at her breasts again. Dammit. He supposed after he finished the harbor here, it would be good to go by the Chromeria. He needed to go there anyway to make sure his orders were being followed and the satrapies were preparing for war, but spending some quality time in bed with his room slave Marissia would help him tolerate a few more weeks with Karris Blue Balls.

If the Third Eye weren’t standing right there, Gavin would have drafted blue in order to give himself the cool rationality blue always brought.

Wait, no, I wouldn’t have. I can’t draft blue anymore.

Orholam’s hairy ass. Gavin’s throat tightened.

“Greetings,” Gavin said. “Light be upon you.”

The Third Eye was staring at him intently, and Gavin could swear that the tattoo was actually glowing brighter—not an impossible trick, but a good one regardless. “You’re dying,” she said, her voice mellifluous. “You’re not supposed to be dying yet.”

The Blackguard training went about how Kip expected: a lot of running (not very fast), a lot of jumping (not very high), a lot of punching in time (not very timely), a lot of push-ups and sit-ups (not a lot). The vomiting, however, was a surprise. Not a pleasant one.

He stood, bent over, by one of the chalk lines, his whole body hot and cold and flushed. He felt like he was going to die.

“The good news is that this is as bad as it gets,” a familiar voice said.

Kip could barely lift his eyes from Ironfist’s shoes. He was purely focused on breathing. In, out.

“If you want it to stop, Kip, it can.”

Kip spat, trying to clear the acrid sludge from his mouth. It didn’t work. It seemed to cling to every crack and crevice. “What?”

“If you hate this. If you think it’s pointless, you can quit. In fact, I’ve been asked to cut you.”

“Cut me?” Kip’s brain wasn’t working very well.

“The Red is demanding that you be cut from the Blackguard. He cast aspersions on whether you would have been selected if you weren’t… if the Prism hadn’t requested it.”

Which was, of course, true.

So Commander Ironfist was caught between what the Prism had asked him to do and what the Red was demanding now—but Andross Guile was here, and Gavin Guile wasn’t.

“I guess my meeting with him went even worse than I thought, huh?” Kip said.

“You’re a couple years before you can play those games with these people, Kip. Don’t worry why they’re doing what they’re doing. It probably has nothing to do with you anyway. What you need to do is figure out
you
. Do you want to quit, or do you want to stay?”

Kip straightened up. Teia handed him a cup of water. She’d heard everything, but her eyes were a cipher. Kip’s arm felt wobbly even as he lifted the water to his lips. He swished. Spat it aside.

He was the worst person in the class. Of forty-nine people, he did the fewest push-ups. He ran the slowest. He finished last. He couldn’t do a single pull-up. If he stayed, he would probably vomit every day. Every week, he would get his ass kicked more times than he could count. Every month, he’d get beat up in the testing, probably many times.

It wasn’t even a fair contest: his left hand was still injured, raw, tight, painful to fully open, agony to put pressure on.

His father had put him in this position, against the express wishes of Ironfist, expecting Kip not to be good enough to make the cut on
his own. Expecting him to fail. And now his grandfather wanted to destroy him.

“Am I even going to be able to stay at the Chromeria?” Kip asked. “If I’m not a Guile, I don’t have a sponsor, do I?”

A brief, satisfied smile flickered over Ironfist’s face. “The funds had already been transferred to your account. Your tuition is fully paid. And believe me, once the money goes in, the abacus jockeys over there don’t let it go out.”

The funds had already been transferred. Past tense. So Kip’s grandfather had tried to go after them, but had been foiled. And the quick smile meant Ironfist had done that—and was pleased to have stymied Andross Guile in this one small thing.

“But the situation is worse than that,” Ironfist said. “From here on out, it’s all you. You understand?”

Kip understood. Ironfist was being delicate because Teia was standing right there. He wouldn’t help Kip. Couldn’t stack the odds for him. If Kip got in to the Blackguard, he’d have to get in on his own. It was impossible.

And yet freeing. If Kip did this, he’d do it on his own. Not because of his father, but on his own merit.

So, it comes to this: an easy life as a student who doesn’t even need a sponsor, or a terrifically hard life as the worst of the scrubs, and a slim chance to actually make it into the Blackguard on my own and be something.

“Fuck ’em,” Kip said. “I’m staying.”

“Good,” Ironfist said. A fierce pleasure filled his eyes. He took a deep breath that expanded his giant chest and brought his massive shoulders proudly back. “Good. Now, five laps. Blackguards guard their tongues, too.” Suddenly he was back in command, sharp and stern and all professionalism.