The Broken Eye (53 page)

“It’s not that bad,” Ferkudi said.

“Yes it is,” Kip said. “You just don’t want to face it yet.”

“No one’s tried to bribe or blackmail me,” Ferkudi said.

“Ferk,” Kip said, exasperated. “It’s because they think you’re too dumb to bribe and too unpredictable to blackmail and too apt to talk to be charmed. They’re wrong on the first count.”

Ferkudi blinked like a dog whose nose had been swatted.

But Kip went right on. “But that’s not the point. If a group with the small size, the wealth, the good leadership, and all the advantages of the Blackguard can have its members go bad, how could we possibly expect a group that’s so much larger, and more powerful, and spread out over all the satrapies—with
poor
leadership in some areas—to be more virtuous than we are?”

“You mean the Chromeria,” Teia said.

“I do.”

“I expect it because they made vows before Orholam,” Big Leo said, speaking up for the first time. “Because they are Orholam’s hands on earth. They shouldn’t fail that kind of a holy trust.”

“No,” Kip said. “They shouldn’t. Men and women should never violate their oaths.”

“But they do,” Ferkudi said. Bless him, always stating the obvious. But then, sometimes the obvious benefited from being dragged out into the full glare of the light.

“The Blood Robes are liars leading naïfs,” Kip said. “They don’t want to live up to the oaths they took that when they became a danger, they’d end themselves. They’re afraid and unfaithful, so they say their vows don’t count. They want to lord their power over others, so they say the Chromeria unfairly lords its power over them. The Chromeria says that every man is equal in Orholam’s sight, that our powers and privileges make us the greater slaves of our communities. I don’t admire Magister Kadah, but she’s right about that much. On the other hand, the Color Prince says drafters are above other men by nature—and at the same time talks about abolishing slavery. Tell me, if drafters are above other men by nature, why would you abolish slavery?”

Silence reigned for a few long moments.

“Because he needed an army,” Cruxer said. “And coming from Tyrea, he had to pass the mines at Laurion and the tens of thousands of slaves there.”

“To divide your enemy,” Daelos said. “Armies afraid of what their own slaves will do when they’re gone won’t go far from home.”

“Understand that everything the Color Prince does, he does for power, and you’ll understand everything he does,” Kip said.

“It can’t be that simple, can it?” Teia said. “If so, how come you see it, and no one else does?”

“Because I’m a bad person, so I understand how bad people think.”

What the hell did he mean by that? Was he fishing for compliments?

But Kip was still speaking. “Don’t judge a man by what he says his ideals are, judge him by what he does. Look at what the Color Prince has done. They’re wrong, Teia. They’re liars and murderers. It doesn’t mean everything we do is right. It doesn’t mean our house doesn’t need a thorough cleaning. I just don’t think we need to burn it to the ground to do it.”

Ferkudi nodded his head. “My folks had a saying: the fact your dog has fleas is no reason to open your home to a wolf.”

“My dad used that one, too. But he said, wife, rash, bed, and whore,” Winsen said.

Goss said, “A lesson he had to learn the hard way, no doubt.”

Ferkudi laughed with them. Then he said, “I don’t get it.”

“It’s one of those things, Ferk,” Goss said.

“Where if you explain it, it doesn’t work?” Ferkudi asked. He was familiar with those. “Flesh protuberance!”

Worst swear ever. Second worst, maybe. For a while he’d used ‘proboscis.’

“You think it’s that simple, Breaker?” Teia asked, ignoring the boys.

“In the False Prism’s War, Gavin’s generals ordered the burning of Garriston. It was stupid. It was wrong. Horrific. The fires spread, and they killed scores of thousands. It wasn’t strategy; it was vengeance for what happened in Ru, but far worse. But Gavin had to win the war. And after he won, he couldn’t punish those who did it, though I’m sure he wanted to. They said—and maybe they even believed—that what they had done was necessary to win. So he gave them medals and showed them the door. Not one of those involved in burning Garriston is here on the Jaspers anymore. You think that’s a coincidence? Those men are no longer in any position where they could do something like that again. Was what Gavin did once the deed had been done
good
? No. But it was the best thing possible.”

“And this?” Teia asked, showing her still-bloodied hands and the bloody rag that wouldn’t get the stains out completely. “This is the best thing?”

Kip stared her hard in the eye. He took the towel in his own clean hands and smeared blood first on one palm and then on the other. “Not the best thing, Teia. The best thing possible? A thousand times yes.”

And staring into his eyes, she believed him. It was a damned thing, war, but she wasn’t damned for fighting it. It shifted her burden only a little—not much, but enough.

Twenty minutes later, after the squad had cleaned up, after Cruxer had debriefed each of them in turn, they formed up at the door of the safe house to go back to the Chromeria together and report. It was obviously a duty Cruxer wasn’t relishing.

“Teia,” Cruxer said. “Up front.”

“Huh?”

“You’re my number two now. First sergeant.”

Teia looked at Ferkudi, whom she was displacing. He didn’t look angry. “The promotion was my idea, Teia,” he said. “We froze up out there. I froze up. You deserve it.”

Deserve it? She’d gone crazy out there. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she simply took her new place.

“What about Breaker?” she asked.

“Breaker is Breaker,” Cruxer said. “He, uh, doesn’t fit exactly in the chain of command. When it’s time to listen to him, we listen. The rest of the time, he listens to us. Fair, Breaker?”

Kip looked bereaved, but resolute. “So it begins?” he asked Cruxer quietly.

Teia had no idea what they were talking about. “It began a long time ago, Breaker,” Cruxer said. “The only question is if you fight fate or try to steer it.”

“Fate?” Kip asked. “You’re the one who gave me the name Breaker in the first place.”

“Oops,” Cruxer said. A wry grin.

“Fair enough, Captain. I’ll take the half-step to the outside. I wanted this more than anything, though. You know that, right?”

“I know what it is to want … the impossible.” His mouth twisted, and Teia knew he was thinking of Lucia.

Kip said, “You’re the best of us, Cruxer. In every way. Don’t you dare die, you understand?”

“Meh, I’m invincible,” Cruxer said. “Now let’s get back, double time. Let’s see if we can work some more of this off.” He poked Kip in the belly, and they both grinned.

Boys. How Teia loved them both.

Chapter 48

Weeks later, they stood again in their ranks in front of Trainer Fisk. He cast a baleful eye around the great yard beneath the Chromeria. Everywhere, Blackguards were training men and women who were not Blackguards. He stared at one arc of the great circle with particular, undisguised hatred, though.

The rumored Lightguard was now a reality. The nunks joined him in his spite. Established with one stroke of the new promachos’s pen, the Lightguard was Andross Guile’s own personal army, established to defend the Jaspers, so he said, and answering only to him.

The Blackguards saw what he was doing, even if it seemed no one else in power did. The Lightguard was comprised of mercenaries, ruffians, veterans from the old war, and any others who were willing to do whatever Andross Guile wanted in return for coin and his protection from prosecution or vengeance for any crime they might have committed. They were led primarily by washed-out Blackguards and the sons of poor nobles who wanted to throw themselves on Andross Guile’s mercy.

They had been given tailed white jackets with big brass buttons and medals for trifles. Worse, they were given some of the Blackguard’s prerogatives: allowed to walk through the Chromeria armed, for one.

And they were being taught—by the promachos’s incontrovertible order—by a Blackguard. It was like being forced to gut yourself with a rusty knife.

“Today, Specials,” Trainer Fisk said, spitting in the direction of the Lightguards, but then turning away.

Almost all of their training was special assignments now, and there was little pretense that it was only training. The swearing in to full Blackguard status of the best inductees had been halted. Commander Ironfist had seen that once sworn, his people were sent to duties like training Lightguards, so he held on to them.

Other Blackguards were being sent on other missions: some of them searching for Gavin, others disappearing for days or weeks, and coming back, sworn to silence about what they’d been doing. Word got out, at least in Blackguard circles, though. They were looking for bane. They said there might be nexuses of each of the seven colors out there somewhere. Which, to Kip’s ears, sounded like more gods to fight.

Some of them reported strange sights, odd phenomena they’d encountered. One brought back a small lizard called a sand dragon from Atash. The nunks thought it was the least exciting dragon ever. It didn’t breathe fire or anything interesting, but when they killed it, they were able to set it on fire without any other fuel, and it burned for three days. Somehow the things incorporated red luxin into their bodies, much like atasifusta trees used to do. This was the first one that had been seen in many years.

In Ruthgar, there were stories of the grasslands—usually dormant and brown this late in the year—growing green in great nine-pointed stars. It might have been the work of rogue green drafters fertilizing the plains to make a statement for the Color Prince, but two of the Blackguards had seen one. They believed what they had seen was far too big to be the work of even three or four green drafters working together.

In Paria, a team had found a town where half the wells were full of orange luxin. The village elders swore that there were no orange drafters nearby. And in a week, the luxin simply disappeared.

There were wilder rumors, too, of firestorms in Tyrea, where instead of lightning, great streaks of fire splashed down with the rain and hail and snow. Sinkholes in Abornea. Boiling seas off Pericol. Animals acting strangely, and even plants seeming to act with intent. It was impossible to filter the truth from the nonsense and, quickly, impossible to get some of the books from the restricted libraries that had been sitting right under the squad’s nose. Scholars appointed by Andross himself came in, grabbed a bunch of books and scrolls, and left without a word.

And all the time, the war was being fought. The enemy was advancing. Others were fighting in their place, far away.

With them all formed up, Trainer Fisk said, “Today your assignment, every squad, is to go to the docks on East Bay. The Lists are being read. Go.”

He stopped.

“And what, sir?” an Archer named Kerea asked. “What are we to do?”

“You listen. Was there something unclear about your orders? Go!”

They went.

“What was that about?” Ferkudi asked before they even reached the Lily’s Stem.

Cruxer seemed somber. But he didn’t answer. Kip took his lead and didn’t answer either. Knowing what a lesson was beforehand didn’t mean you had to blunt its impact on those who didn’t.

“Let’s take it at a jog,” Cruxer said.

They jogged through the enclosed bridge as the sunrise shone brilliance on them. Kip had two thoughts: first, that he was no longer baffled at the wonders of magic of these islands. Running through a luxin tube suspended at the level of the waves had somehow become normal to him. The awkward bumpkin was gone. He wasn’t sure that was all good. How insular the Jasperites became, every day seeing magic the likes of which a Tyrean orchardist would never see in his life, every day rubbing shoulders with women and men who harnessed Orholam’s breath itself. All the world turned around the Jaspers, but the Jaspers were not all the world. Second, he realized there was now no sign at all of the sea demon attack that had nearly demolished this bridge. The sea demon itself hadn’t been seen since the Feast of Light and Darkness, nor the black whale. The mess had been cleared, the dead taken away—and none of them were people Kip had known, or known by people Kip knew. It was like it hadn’t happened.

This is what it is to live in the cosmos that is the Jaspers. The world changes here, but here there is not one world, there are many, and we only see the others when they tread upon our toes.

They made it to the docks and slowed as they pushed through the press of bodies. Cruxer acted as a wedge, and Big Leo went second, clearing a path for the rest of them. In their inductees’ grays, no one resisted them.

There was a tall carven pedestal just wide enough for a crier to stand on, and a man was clambering up the ladder to stand there. He reached into a pouch he wore and pulled out a scroll. He cracked the seal, and the crowd quieted, then he allowed the scroll to unfurl.

Murmurs shot through the crowd as they saw the scroll unroll past his feet. But they quieted again as the man began reading, his voice a clear, cutting tenor that carried easily over the murmurs and the sounds of sailors unloading their ships, wagons creaking past on old wheels. “This is the list of those dead or missing and believed to be dead who hail from Big Jasper or the Chromeria, from the end of the skirmish at Ruic Neck until the end of the Battle of Ox Ford. This list is complete and truthful to the best of my knowledge, so swears Lord Commander of the Unified Armies of the Satrapies, Caul Azmith.”

And then he began reading names. Noblewomen first, then noblemen. Scant few though there were of either. Then female drafters, then male drafters. As slaves—despite being drafters—the Blackguards came next, barely before the commoners.

“Of the Blackguard: Elessia, Laya, Tugertent, Ahhanen, Djur, Norl Jumper, and Pan Harl.”

And then he read on, as if those were but a few names of the hundreds or thousands he had yet to read this day, as if this was simply his work. Which of course it was.