The Burning White (107 page)

Koios was still playing the long game.

“So let’s win, shall we?” Andross said. “To that end, I have gifts for you.”

Kip and the others looked at one another. Gifts? Andross Guile?

“Commander Leonidas,” Andross said. A slave brought forward a huge rosewood box that he seemed to have difficulty carrying.

“Leonidas?” Kip asked. “Big Leo?”

“I know, I know, it sounds like a girl’s name,” Big Leo said sheepishly.

He opened the box.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have.” On the top was a thick black leather coat with a high collar. Across the chest was the Mighty’s sigil in white leather. He picked it up; it was obviously very heavy, with chain and plate woven in beneath the leather.

“Oh, you
really
shouldn’t have,” he said, looking into the rosewood box. Lifting the coat had revealed, on velvet, a hammered, heavy copper chain with links the size of fists. There were two gloves inside as well. Big Leo looked at Andross, who nodded.

Leo put on the gloves and lifted the heavy chain. Each link had a black stripe around its burnished circumference. Then he looked at the tips of the thumbs of his gloves. “Oh, hell, yes!” he said, and flicked his thumb against the chain.

Nothing happened.

“Chain’s copper so you don’t throw a spark accidentally when it’s wrapped around your own body,” Andross said. “Forefinger and thumb.”

Kip didn’t know what he was talking about. But Big Leo looked down at his gloves. He held the chain out and flicked his thumb against his forefinger, throwing a spark.

The entire chain caught fire as the atasifusta wood in each link whooshed into flame.

“Holy shit,” Ferkudi said.

Big Leo whipped the fiery chain in frippering circles, passing it over his arms, around his back, striking one end out like a spear, whipping it down like a hammer, and then winding it around an arm.

Then he sort of spoiled the terrifying effect when he giggled like a little kid.

That actually made it more terrifying.

“I know I just said this, but
holy shit
,” Ferkudi said.

However, the chain on his arm continued to burn. Atasifusta, the ever-burning.

Ah, thus the leather. Still . . .

Andross said, “When you’re done, do this.” He laid a hand on Big Leo’s arm. Red luxin poured from his hand, coating the burning chain. First it flared up into fire, red luxin being flammable, but then the luxin crusted over, blackened in every place, extinguishing itself and the chain.

When Big Leo moved his arm again, the red luxin broke to dust with the smell of tea leaves and tobacco, his arm and the chain unharmed. He was also given a helm: naturally, it was a lion with a mane like fire.

Andross motioned for the young man to step back. “Don’t say thanks. Express your thanks by keeping Kip alive.”

“Yes, my lord,” Big Leo said.

“Ferkudi del’Angelos,” Andross said. Ferkudi stepped forward. “I hear you’re a grappler.” His armor was the same, albeit without the covering of leather, and thus much lighter. But his, too, was black and adorned with the Mighty’s sigil: the man with head bowed, arms out, radiating power. His weapons were twin double-bladed hand axes, each with one blade of steel and the other blade of a single wavering obsidian edge. Each obsidian stone itself could have purchased a castle. Nothing could cut through luxin like those. He, too, was given gloves, with hellstone points at the knuckles.

Andross said, “Wights will either flee in terror or seek you out especially. I order you to kill at least one of their petty gods, understood?”

“With pleasure, High Lord,” Ferkudi said.

The hand axes were completed with sword-breaking hafts and an ingenious back sheath. Ferkudi took a bear helm.

For Winsen, there was the lightest armor, befitting the archer’s small size. His helm was a snake. And there was a short bow inside. It was beautifully wrought with horses in some ancient art style, but at first Winsen sneered at it. He did admire the arrows, two quivers full, half of them tipped with obsidian. He looked at them in the light. “Flawless, best fletching I’ve seen, too. But as for the bow, it’s beautiful, but . . . a short bow? And it’s got a sight? I think I’ll keep my—”

“It’ll pierce armor at three hundred paces. Test it if you don’t believe me. My man will instruct you on its care.”

Winsen couldn’t help himself. He lifted the bow and drew the string, his broad back knotting with the effort. It was clearly harder than he’d been expecting. Then he walked away with it, muttering obscenities in appreciation.

“Ben-hadad,” Andross said.

Ben was, surprisingly, little the worse for wear. A servant had found him around noon, tied up, and since then he’d been more fixated on Cruxer’s death than on his own narrow escape from it. He’d quietly told Kip of Teia’s kidnapping and the work he’d been doing but that his door code was wrong, and when they’d cut through a wall to get in, it was to the wrong room. Sharp would be holding Teia somewhere else. Maybe nearby, which meant Ben-hadad had to revisit his earlier work searching for hidden rooms: he’d missed something.

But that work would take him hours if not days. Teia would be dead by then, if she wasn’t already. Ben had told Kip he instead needed to concentrate his efforts on checking the siege defenses and all the various machinae that were going to be used in the Jaspers’ defense.

With anguish, Kip had agreed. The battle hadn’t even begun, and two of his Mighty were already dead.

He wanted to make the Order pay dearly for that, but he knew he wasn’t going to. He was going to die before he could do anything about them.

Andross gave Ben-hadad a coat that was similar to Ferkudi’s.

Ben felt it and said, “What’s layered underneath this?”

“Mirrored steel scale, like all of them,” Andross said. “It’s not as strong as plate, but not nearly as heavy, either. Try not to test its effectiveness too much.”

Beneath the coat there wasn’t a weapon. Instead, there was a pair knee braces.

“I, uh, am actually almost finished with my backup brace,” Ben-hadad said, gesturing to his current, solid brace. Kip had broken the other when he’d raised the Great Mirror. “Parallel discovery, I guess? But thank you? Definitely will save me some hours tonight.”

“These are Commander Finer’s own knee braces,” Andross said. “Before he went wight and tried to kill his Prism, he developed these. Instead of using open luxin, he reinforced the joints with sea-demon bone. I think you’ll also find that wearing two of them, you can do much, much more than you did with one.”

“Two? And sea-demon . . . ?” Ben-hadad’s eyes widened. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? This is—thank you! Thank you very, very much!”

“While you’re at it, you may also take the
sharana ru
I’d intended for Cruxer,” Andross said.

“No, I can’t,” Ben said, though the curiosity in his eyes was plain. A tygre striper?

“It’s not going to do him any good,” Andross said.

An uneasy silence descended on them.

“I can’t,” Ben-hadad said finally.

“Don’t be a damned fool. Cruxer died because he couldn’t adjust to realities shifting under his feet. Don’t follow his example in this.” Andross drew a tygre striper shaped like a white spear from Cruxer’s box and veritably threw it at Ben-hadad. “Kill a god for me.”

Looking to the rest of the Mighty, who nodded their approval, Ben-hadad kept the thing. The spear was long and thin, with a steel spike at the foot and a graceful steel blade at the top, below which were embedded jagged obsidian teeth in the haft.

Turning to Kip, Andross said, “We’ll have the appropriate funerals, if we live so long. Now, where is your stubborn bride?”

Kip said, “I guess she’s not that eager to see you again. Strangely enough.”

“Strangely enough, I’m tempted not to give her her gift, then. But whatever. Take it.”

Kip stepped forward and opened Tisis’s chest. Inside was a red dress, high-necked and long-sleeved and heavy and adorned with the Mighty’s sigil as well. “Armored?” Kip asked.

“As much as possible without being obvious. I figured that her duties wouldn’t be martial, but that she may well not stay away from harm, either. The Guile women seem to hold in common a lack of an aversion to danger.”

“This is Felia’s dress, isn’t it?” Kip asked. Andross had merely had a tailor add the Mighty’s sigil to it.

Andross pursed his lips. “I hate how you do that.”

“So, do I get anything?” Kip said flippantly.

“Oh yes,” Andross said, his eyes twinkling. “I spent a long time pondering if I should give you armor so fine you couldn’t turn it down but that would make you look like a raging asshole.”

“Nice,” Kip said. Though I kind of do that on my own.

“But I figured you already do that on your own.”

I hate how he does that.

Andross gestured and a slave brought out another box. In it was armor to match the Mighty, albeit with the colors reversed, the armor entirely white, with the figure of the man in black, head bowed, silhouette suspiciously like Kip’s own these days. “White, huh? That’s a little raging-assholey,” Kip said.

“I couldn’t give up the idea altogether.”

“By which I mean, thank you, grandfather.”

“Stop. I’m getting weepy.”

“Is there a weapon for me?”

“I thought you’d enjoy going into battle armed with your wit,” Andross said.

“But you’d not want me to go into battle defenseless.”

Andross didn’t smile. He simply held out his hand. In it was a single Nine Kings card.

In a flash, Kip remembered the other cards, but the memories were fragmentary: Andross the Red, and The Master. Now this, a
third
card for Andross Guile, called simply The Guile. In Janus Borig’s exquisite style, it showed an old man seated in darkness, eyes glowing red-gold. The faintest glow outlined his head against the darkness. His fingers were colored claws, in each color.

One of each color, because Andross was a full-spectrum polychrome. Well, that would have been nice to remember before now. Or maybe Kip would have guessed it was merely symbolic of having the other Colors on the Spectrum under his fingers.

“Cute,” Kip said.

“Not quite turtle-bear cute, but I like it.”

“You’re a motherfucker.”

“In more ways than one.”

“That’s all you’ve got for me? Scorn and a card?” Kip asked. “You give them weapons; you give me knowledge. Ordinarily, I’d see deep meaning in that. Today it’s just a distraction. It’s always games and bullshit with you, isn’t it?”

Viewing the cards only took an instant, but it might louse Kip up for hours or days. Another Andross Guile card? How bad might it be to View that? Forget it. Kip would either want to murder the man standing here in front of him, or worse, he might understand him. Either way, Kip might be shaken for hours. Hours he didn’t have.

Andross said, “Also, I’m ready to tell you your family history. Your mother’s history. Your father’s. Your uncle’s. Mine. It’ll be deeply unpleasant for both of us, but perhaps it’s time.”

“Forget it. This is my family,” Kip said, gesturing to the Mighty.

“Your choice,” Andross said, with that air that implied, as ever, that Kip was a fool.

Kip tucked the card away carelessly, like it was trash. “Funny thing is, grandfather, after all the time I’ve spent with you, I’ve come to a belated but very important realization: you just aren’t worth getting to know better. Thanks for the armor. Goodbye.”

He picked up his helm from the slave on the way out. It was a dragon’s head. With
fur
on it. Sonuvabitch.

Teia was only half-unlucky. All things considered, that felt pretty good.

Between her capture and falling asleep for ‘just a moment,’ she’d lost much of the day, though she finally wasn’t high anymore. She’d first gone to see if Ben-hadad was still tied up, but he was gone. Rescued, she assumed. Or at least she hoped so.

She wanted to find her friends, to tell them everything. But there was no time to hunt them down. She had other hunting to do.

Atevia Zelorn wasn’t at any of his warehouses; he wasn’t at any of his favorite taverns or brothels on Teia’s way—but he was at his own home. Her favorite wine merchant/serial cheater/Braxian high priest hadn’t left yet.

She crouched invisibly outside one window until he made his excuses to his beautiful wife and headed out for his ‘ long-planned business meeting.’ She said, “Please don’t get drunk tonight? I promised the children we’d attend the predawn pyrotechnics. They’re still having a few, I hear . . . despite everything.”

If Teia had her way, those would be the last words the woman ever said to her husband. Atevia made his promises and headed out, climbing up into a wagon that his slaves had brought around.

Teia timed her own climbing up into the back of the wagon with Atevia climbing up into the front seat so that no one noticed the weight displacement, and then she carefully tucked herself in with the great wine barrels, spreading the master cloak out over herself.

They stopped half an hour later, and men unloaded the barrels and brought them into a dingy little workshop. Teia had gotten very good at taking little glimpses and moving when the timing was right. She dropped off the far side of the wagon so that when the cloak flared from the fall, no one would have a chance to see her momentarily visible legs.

Atevia Zelorn put on a new cowl before he climbed down. This one was lined with fine mail.

The man or woman who received the shipment had one very similar. He or she didn’t speak, and moved carefully, so it wasn’t until Teia risked a blast of paryl through the new person’s clothing that she was able to tell the other figure was a woman.

The woman held up a gloved hand to Atevia, fingers extending, twice.

“Ten minutes. Fine, fine,” Atevia said, putting a growl into his voice. It wasn’t the greatest disguise, but there were more men than women in the Order, so perhaps he figured it was good enough. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

He stepped outside, and the servants opened the barrels. The woman dismissed them and then moved from barrel to barrel. She held a small vial in one hand. It stank. Teia recognized it as a common emetic.