The Blinding Knife (33 page)

One wall was dedicated to finished cards. They were hung so densely that you couldn’t touch the wall. And the wall was so big, so packed—from floor to ceiling—that if Kip hadn’t spent the last weeks in the library, memorizing everything he could learn about these cards, he’d have no idea that every single one of them was worth a fortune. These were originals.

And there were too many of them. Kip sucked in a sudden breath.

“The Black Cards. The heresy decks,” Janus said. She sat on a little stool in front of her easel. “You know of them.”

“I’ve barely heard a whisper,” Kip said. “I—not really.”

“What colors have you drafted, Kip Guile?”

Kip felt a chill, displacement, sickness. “That’s not my name,” he said stiffly.

“There is no one else you can be, Kip. I’ve seen your eyes. You think you’re smart, but the truth is—”

“Right, I know, everyone tells me—”

“—you’re a lot smarter than you think you are.”

Which left him dumbstruck. Ironically enough.

“You’re a Guile to your bones, young man. Even if you’re not a son, a bastard can go far in this world. The Guiles are cursed, don’t you know? The family has few children, and has had few for generations. Intense lights all snuffed too soon. So goes the story, anyway. Now, what colors have you drafted?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m starting your card.”

She was speaking another language, or nonsense. Kip knuckled his forehead.

“I have a gift,” Janus Borig said. “Curious, curious gift. Unusual. I have a host of gifts that are common enough, of course, though not common all together, and one gift as rare as a Prism’s.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me,” Kip said. Someone is telling you something interesting, and you have to let your big yap interfere?

But she laughed. “Green, of course. But blue, too. What else? You’re not merely a bichrome, I’m certain of that.”

Want to play it like that?

“You can paint,” Kip said. “Very skilled, and you’re a jeweler, too. You can split a stone finely enough to fit it on your cards.”

She chuckled. Smoked. “Here’s the thing, this game is much easier for me. I only have nine colors left to guess from, and you may well be
able to draft more than one of those. You, on the other hand, have all the uncommon abilities in the world from which to guess.”

Nine colors left? Eleven colors? What the hell was she talking about? “You’re teasing me,” Kip said.

“Maybe we’ll know each other well enough someday that you’ll be able to figure that out,” she said. “Smoke?”

Huh? “Sub-red,” Kip said, thinking she was guessing what he could draft.

She lowered her pipe. Oh, she’d been offering to share her pipe. But she said quickly, “You’ve drafted sub-red, or fire?”

“Same thing,” Kip said.

“Answer the question.”

“Fire.”

“Do you know, a scheme can be useful without being true. You can see sub-red?”

“Yes,” Kip said. Suddenly, he wasn’t sure why he’d come. Curiosity? Maybe it hadn’t been a good enough reason.

“Can you see superviolet?” she asked.

He nodded, grudgingly. He wasn’t even sure why he was loath to give her more information.

“Do you want to be a Prism, Kip?”

It was like she had a trick of asking questions that he didn’t want to ask himself. “Everyone probably thinks about that,” Kip said.

“You don’t know if you want it or not. Part of you does, but you don’t think you could ever be the man your father is.”

“That’s crazy talk,” Kip said. He swallowed.

“No, it’s not. I know crazy talk. I know it well. I am a Maker. We are not mere artists; we are the caretakers of history. The cards are history. Each one tells a truth, a story. The Black Cards tell history that has been suppressed, because it threatens…” She looked up at the ceiling, thinking, looking for the right word. She gave up. “Well, it threatens. Take that as you will.”

She smoked, thinking.

“What I’m about to tell you is heresy. Don’t repeat it, if you value your life. Heresy, but true. Take these words, and bury them, treasure them. There are seven Great Gifts, Kip. Some are common. Others are given only to one person a generation, or one person a century. Light is truth, and all the gifts are connected to this foundation. To light, to truth, to reality. Being a drafter—one who works with
light—is a great gift, but a relatively common one. Being a Prism is another. Being a Seer, who sees the essence of things, that is much rarer. My gift is rare as well: I am a Mirror. My gift is that I can’t paint a lie. And my gift tells me that your father has two secrets. You, Kip, are not one of them.”

“So what’s your real name?” Gavin asked the Third Eye, coming to stand beside her on the beach. She had kept her vigil on the southernmost point of Seers Island, and the descending sun bathed the woman in gold. “Or what was it, before? Who are your people?”

The Third Eye was dressed in a yellow cotton dress that made her look merely mortal, though she was still a striking, radiant figure. She hadn’t sent for Gavin until late afternoon. Her associate, or servant, or friend, Caelia, told Gavin that seeing the future took time.

“Oh no you don’t,” the Third Eye said. “You’re probably one of those men who accuses
women
of being capricious, too.”

“Huh?”

“You ask me last night not to tempt you, to be more formal, and today the first thing you do is ask for greater familiarity. Uh-uh, Lord Prism. In your vanity you can take pleasure in breaking other hearts. Not mine.”

Vanity? That was a little offensive, a little blunt, a little… accurate. He made to speak, then found he had nothing to say.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “The aftermath of Seeing is… I forget myself. It’s hard not to be honest. My apologies.” She snapped open a handfan and fanned herself. “I’m afraid I’ve overheated, too. My skin doesn’t well tolerate so much sun.”

She did indeed look like she’d have a good burn.

“Seeing requires light, you said?” Gavin asked.

She nodded but didn’t seem interested in explaining her gift any more than that.

“Did you find it?” Gavin asked finally.

“Many times, and down many paths. It’s in the sea.”

“Pardon?”

“The bane is floating, somewhere in the Cerulean Sea.”

“That is…” Useless? Unhelpful? “… a large area,” Gavin said. She’d said three hours east and two and a half hours north—which would be in the sea from here, but somehow he was sure this wouldn’t be that easy.

“I’m aware of this. It is also fairly hard to find landmarks or time markers to tell you where to find it in the sea. It’s moving through the water.”

Gavin threw his hands up. “Where’s it going? Where’s it coming from?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I can tell you it’s heading toward center. A center? The center… I’m not sure.” She looked apologetic.

“The center of the sea? Like White Mist Reef? Or the center like sinking?”

“Bane float, most of the times.”

Times, plural. “That doesn’t give me anything.”

“It gives you enough.” If the bane was floating toward White Mist Reef, then taking the calculations backward, it would be somewhere south of the Ilytian city of Smussato, perhaps floating in a line from the border between Paria and Tyrea. If he knew where it was going, and he could guess that it would go straight, and he knew where it was going to be at any one time, that should give him a line on which it must be.

“You mean I’m going to find it?” Sudden hope.

“Yes.”

He couldn’t believe it. There had to be a catch. This was going to take some figuring with a map and an abacus, but it seemed too easy. “How long is it going to take me?”

“If I tell you that, you’ll stop looking until the day I said you were going to find it.”

“No I wouldn’t—Yes, yes, of course I would.”

She sighed.

“Am I going to find it in time?” he asked.

“Even I don’t know what you’re asking by that.”

“You can’t do this to me,” Gavin said.

“Please don’t blame me for things I have nothing to do with.”

Gavin licked his lips. She was right. Of course she was right: she could see everything. Unnerving still. “What
can
you tell me?” he asked.

“That you’ll be here for a while, and that the Color Prince is looking for it, too, and that you better not let his plan come to fruition. It’s growing, Lord Prism, and the more it grows, the more blues will be drawn to it. Blue wights most of all.”

“Why, what happens? All I know is that the bane were tied in with the old gods’ temples.”

“You’ll see. There’s something else I should tell you.”

“There’s a thousand other things you should tell me!”

“If you take Karris when you go fight it, you’re much more likely to succeed.”

“I could have guessed that myself. She’s a useful woman.”

“And if she goes with you, she’ll almost certainly die.”

“Had to be a catch, didn’t there?” Gavin said.

“I’m not trying to give you a catch; I’m trying to give you a chance.”

He shrugged that off. “ ‘Almost certainly’ as in ninety-nine times out of a hundred, or as in two times out of three?”

“When I see her go with you, I watch her die in dozens of different ways. It’s not pleasant for me. Especially since I know that if she lives, we’re probably going to be friends someday. Assuming you don’t bed certain… you know what? I’ve already said too much.”

“You called Karris The Wife,” Gavin said. “But then you said it was wrong. What did you mean?”

“Knowing that if you know, it will change things… do you really want to know?”

Gavin scowled. “Well, yes.”

“Tough. I’m not telling you.”

“Some soothsayer you are,” Gavin complained.

“I’m not a soothsayer. I’m a seer. I see; sometimes I say what I see. I’m not interested in soothing your feelings.”

She meant it, too. Gavin could see the steel in her again. Doubtless it was the only way she could remain human and deal with her gift.

“Karris doesn’t like to be left behind when I head into danger.”

“You’ve brought me fifty thousand problems, Lord Prism. That, however, is not one of them.”

A good shot, and completely fair. He took a breath to riposte, and
then thought better of it. “My lady, your wit is as sharp as your beauty is radiant. Since the light has so clearly blessed you with its presence, the most I can do is bless you with my absence. Good day.”

He bowed and left. He was only a few steps away when he thought he heard her murmur something. He shot a look over his shoulder, and swore he caught her staring at—

She pursed her lips, a quick look of consternation. “I can foresee the end of the world, but I can’t tell when a man is going to catch me staring at his shapely ass.”

Gavin could do nothing more than beat a dignified retreat, strangely aware of his ass with every step.

The Color Prince had wanted to leave Garriston in six weeks. It had taken eight. Though Liv had spent half her waking hours with the Color Prince, she knew there were entire currents passing right beneath her eyes that she didn’t even see. For a superviolet accustomed to seeing that which others didn’t, it was discomfiting.

One day, a general was found hanged from the open portcullis of the Travertine Palace. Liv only found out after the fact that he had been one who’d advocated staying put, satisfied with regaining Tyrea and settling down in their new country.

The Color Prince had opened his court that day, saying, “While there is oppression anywhere, there is freedom nowhere.”

Liv heard the statement repeated a dozen times that day, and the next day as they marched. He was too busy for her for weeks, spending all his time with his military commanders. Liv was on the outside, literally and figuratively. She rode close to the front, but not with the commanders or advisers. She wasn’t certain of her place, and no one else was either.

The women and men who’d been with the prince since he’d left Kelfing didn’t trust her. She was the enemy general’s daughter. Again. How that infuriated her. In switching sides, her father had managed
to make her be cast out from the opposite side than those who’d treated her like an outcast for her entire youth.

After two weeks on the road, one night the Color Prince summoned her to his tent, which was ostentatiously small and plain. A man of the people. Liv wondered how such transparent tricks worked. But work they did.

“So, Aliviana, have you learned your purpose yet?” he asked.

“You only have perhaps half a dozen superviolets in your whole army. I may be the best of them. I know that you’re looking for more, and you’re looking for a test that will help you identify superviolets. Your methods are crude compared to the Chromeria’s. The general level of your drafters’ abilities is poor, and you’re hoping that the perspectives I bring might be valuable to you. That last is speculation, but well supported, I think. So I think you want me to train your superviolets.”