The Burning White (115 page)

“You see punishment where there is mercy,” Lucidonius said, as if Gavin were a tremendous disappointment.

“Mercy? You’ve arranged this! It’s all perfectly designed for me. Even you. Your appearance itself! I’m the
Prism
! You think I don’t know what an elaborate deception looks like?!”

“On the contrary.” Lucidonius breathed raggedly into his ear. “You are the very son of deception. And it’s time for that to end.”

And then he collapsed.

Gavin staggered into him, and then over him, tripping and tumbling over the man. But Lucidonius grabbed his leg as Gavin fell, and wrenched on it, twisting to slam him into the ground.

There was a strain and shooting pain as Gavin’s hip almost popped out of its socket, but Lucidonius’s hands slipped. Gavin’s back hit the ground, and Lucidonius was pulled off balance. His grip had now slid down to Gavin’s foot. But he didn’t let go. He was pulled down, losing his balance, aiming a knee—

Gavin caught him with both feet.

Then he launched the man off him toward the mirror, kicking both legs as hard as he could.

Lucidonius slammed into the Great Mirror, and the entire surface wobbled and deformed. His whole body seemed to sink into it a little.

Instead of leaping for the sword, Gavin leapt forward, trying to press his advantage. He punched Lucidonius in the stomach, but the muscles there were taut, tensed for the impact. Gavin’s left-handed uppercut missed its huge swing at Lucidonius’s chin, and he stumbled forward.

To avoid even touching the mirror, Gavin slammed his forearm into Lucidonius’s chest in order to regain his balance. But as the mirror rippled once from the force of Lucidonius’s back smacking into it again, rather than trying to break free, the man hugged Gavin’s forearm to his chest.

He rolled sideways, trying to throw Gavin into the mirror.

Gavin threw up his right hand to stop himself—

Once, on a bitterly cold morning in the mountains of Paria when he was first Prism, Gavin had followed the blue wight he was hunting out onto a frozen pond. Ever since a blue had murdered his brother Sevastian, he’d always held a special hatred for them. It had made him foolish that day. The pond was a trap. The wight’s magic had strengthened the ice—for himself. Gavin would never forget the feeling of the ice holding his hesitant first steps easily, but then flexing under his weight, and suddenly buckling.

His magic had saved him that day.

He had none now. Slapping his hand against the mirror felt exactly the same as the ice had felt that day. Where for Lucidonius the mirror seemed gelatinous, forgiving, for Gavin it was frozen, momentarily stable. His hand stopped, held his weight from an icy plunge as his palm tingled, bits of lightning shooting up his forearm, enervating it.

The mirror cracked under his hand like the sound of a musket shot. Gavin snatched his hand away. The mirror was a death trap. Lucidonius wanted to obliterate him.

The moment itched a memory in him, of a dream where he’d stood on the top of a tower, as a giant approached—but there was no time!

I need more time! he’d shouted in his dream.

He turned now and saw Lucidonius, picking up the sword.

Gavin’s heart dropped. He’d been distracted mere seconds, but it had been seconds too long.

But then he saw something worse than seeing his foe armed: Lucidonius turned. His eyes were coals now, still-hot mirrors of the descending sun, but no longer so blindingly bright that they obscured what his face looked like.

“Fuck you!” Gavin roared at the sight of that face. “You want me to think I’m losing my mind!”

“Again,” the man said quietly.

“Yes, again! You drove me to madness once, Orholam. Your lies. You cost me everything! And now,
now
you come back?!” Somehow, Gavin slipped from addressing the godling as Lucidonius to Orholam once more.

It wasn’t a perfect facsimile, but the god wore a face that could have been Gavin’s own.

“I’m not your shadow, Dazen,” the god said. “You’re mine. You are a dim reflection of what you could have been.”

“Lies. From you,
Orholam
. I took such joy in you when I was a child. When I was a boy, I thought I was going to be a luxiat, do you know that? The incense. The ceremony. The hymns. I loved it all. Do you remember? Or did you even notice me then? And then, after I became Prism, when I celebrated the highest and holiest days, they were bitter gall to me. Because I
knew
! And now you stand, wearing that face like mine, stepping from a
mirror
? As if I fight myself here? As if I’m mad already? But I see clearly now. I am the Black Prism. I am the dark center of creation. And now the world’s light and life will feed me as it has fed you for four hundred years, Lucidonius. I will be immortal as you are.”

“I’m not Lucidonius.”

“It doesn’t matter who you say you are. You have to die. You have to die or Karris dies.”

“You have it exactly backward . . . brother.”

The final word struck Gavin in the stomach, driving the breath from him, and if the figure had moved then, he could’ve slain Gavin easily.

No, this was a nightmare, the way the giant fist coming down to crush him had been from that earlier dream. Gavin must be feverish. He must be mad.

No! No. He was
here
. This was
real
.

So this was all calculated. It was a trap.

“You’re not Orholam,” Gavin said. “And you’re
nothing
like my brother. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Usually, we mortals don’t get to serve as messengers,” the man said as if Gavin hadn’t spoken. “But He was making an exception for one brother. And we Guiles
can
be very persuasive.”

“What’d you do, Lucidonius? Try to mold the illusion to look like me as much as you could, and hope the brightness of your eyes would blind me to all its shortcomings?”

“Flaws? Please, brother,” the godling said. “
I’m
the handsome one.” His eyes twinkled with good humor, and he held the blade casually, but kept enough distance between them that Gavin wasn’t going to be able to take him by surprise.

“Well, that’s a little bit like him, I confess. But it’s still not good enough.”

“Brother. You’ve tried to hold out until nightfall. What do you hope comes with the darkness?”

“Your power is faded already,” Gavin said.

“Indeed. Mine is. Orholam’s is not.”

Gavin sighed. “Orholam. Lucidonius. Me. Now you’re someone else again? It’s so tiresome. Just pick one, huh?”

The god laughed. “Oh, is this Gavin complaining, or Dazen, or He Who Would Be Orholam himself?”

“I . . . I—fair enough.”

Gavin wondered if Karris were already dead. Gavin would have one small opportunity here. Grinwoody had proven himself patient above all things, so he wouldn’t be impatient with all his plans on the line. He wouldn’t kill Karris
before
sunset. He wouldn’t even kill her at the very moment of it, surely, as if he were a timepiece. Surely he would wait, if only a few long moments, to see if all his plans might still work out. To see if Gavin might yet come through.

Or so Gavin had to hope.

There would be a few moments soon, just after sunset, where Lucidonius would be at his very weakest. Gavin would wrest the blade away then, and kill him, whether or not he’d told Gavin how to ascend to godhood.

Karris was worth Gavin delaying godhood.

She was worth Gavin losing it.

“You have the sword. I’m at your mercy,” Gavin said. “Surely now you can tell me how you ascended.”

“Are you waiting only for sunset, or do you hope to delay me until full dark?” the god asked. He seemed amused at Gavin’s attempts. “That is quite a long time from now, on the longest day of the year. What’s your plan?”

Not stupid, Lucidonius.

“I don’t think I need full dark,” Gavin said. “A little more and I’m going to take that blade from you and ram it through your heart.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” the god said, looking mournfully at the blade.

“Nice try,” Gavin scoffed. “I mean, as guesses go. I suppose all that black luxin at Sundered Rock messed up even your vision, huh? I didn’t use the Knife to kill Gavin.”

Lucidonius shook his head. “It must be exhausting, seeing lies and schemes everywhere. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve been so steeped in your shame that you never saw how deeply father was lost in his. Of course, he’s very good at hiding it. From you most of all. For many years now, he’s been killing everyone who knows, exiling those who might even suspect. As if the Lightbringer, of all people, would bring darkness.” He expelled a long breath.

Gavin waved that all away. “Lightbringer?” Gavin said. “Father? You think he believes in that? Father’s not remotely superstitious.”

“Where you turned your shame in, he has turned it out on the world. But you, brother, do you think that when Orholam’s Eye sets, that He can no longer see? His light burns unceasing, though all the earth turns its back and sees darkness. In the darkness, He gives us celestial lights that we may be reminded of Him, and the world turns once more. And to you, it is given to be a mirror set on high, to shine light even to the depths and bring others hope of the swiftly coming dawn.”

“What are you, insane?”

“I never said
you
killed me.”

It was such a non sequitur that Gavin couldn’t even respond for a moment. “Ah, I see. Now you’re simply throwing as many words at me as possible. My confusion
is
the point. But I know how this works. I remember what you just said. I’m a Guile. It’s what we do. I might have lost a few things because I drafted black, but I certainly fucking remember killing Gavin.”

“And with all the memories you lost, I’m so sorry you kept that one.”

“Oh, I’m sure you are, as it gives the lie to your little—”

“Brother. Peace. I never said I was Gavin.”

“You just—” Gavin suddenly couldn’t breathe as the implication of Lucidonius’s words slipped through his defenses like a knife between a child’s ribs.

The godling said, “This is how I would’ve looked now, had I lived. You needed to exhaust your rage, fighting all through the day, so I begged for the duty. I didn’t expect to get it. But then I worried that the young face of him you loved so well might push you to madness.”

“No.” Gavin wouldn’t allow this. “Not
him
. Don’t you . . . don’t you defile
him
,” he whispered.

“Dazen, there is no gentle way to lance a boil. Nor an easy way to bring a betrayal to light.”

“Says the man who poses as a god?! Take off that face! And you stop talking
right fucking now
,” Gavin said.

“There’s work yet to do, big brother. And only just time enough for it. The sun sinks, and your son is dying.”

“Don’t you—see?! This is exactly what I was talking about! You throw more and more at me, hoping to confound me. Hoping to get me tangled up, hoping to distract me from—”

“It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you.”

“You fuck!” Gavin nearly leapt to attack him, sword be damned. “I said don’t you dare—”

The creature who pretended to be Sevastian did the last thing Gavin expected: Sevastian tossed the sword to him—or
at
him, somewhat, for though hilt-first, it was no gentle toss.

Gavin cut his fingers as he bobbled the blade. He retreated, stunned back into recognition of their fight and the blade and the peril he was in.

But ‘Sevastian’ made no move to attack, nor even to close the gap between them.

Gavin came down with the blade in his right hand, without his adversary so much as attacking. He was so stunned that his adversary had given up every advantage that they’d fought for throughout the entire, long day that he nearly forgot his rage, Guile though he was.

“Before any of us were born, father came to believe he was the Lightbringer,” Sevastian said.

“Stop it now,” Gavin said. “I have the monopoly on the madness here.”

“He thought only he could save the world. That he was the most important person in history.”

“Well, that much does sound like father,” Gavin admitted.

“He thought that if he didn’t save the world, no one would. He laid out a path, and as he always did, he pushed through every obstacle. But one time, he got outmaneuvered, outplayed at the great game. High Lord Ulbear Rathcore saw the size of father’s ambition. Before father was even on the Spectrum, Rathcore pushed an obscure rule change about the Prism sacrifice through the Spectrum that he thought would stop father’s ambitions.”

Ulbear Rathcore? Gavin had barely known the older man, only that he resigned from the Spectrum and left the Chromeria around the time when his wife, Orea Pullawr, had become the White. That was decades ago. Orea had only spoken of him with fondness, which had seemed odd, given that they’d lived apart for as long as Gavin could remember. Rathcore had never even visited the Chromeria again, and as the White, Orea couldn’t leave it.

“Wait. What? What? The Prism
what
?”

“Centuries ago now, Vician was the last true Prism. Born, not made. But when it came time to step down and surrender his powers, he murdered his successor instead. And then he murdered all those he could find with the gift, renewing his own powers—for a time—with theirs. He cowed and bought off the Magisterium and the Spectrum, and they helped him, rather than fighting him. But true Prisms stopped being born, even after Vician was gone. Some say those with the gift were still being born, but that a faithful luxiat had used black luxin to destroy the knowledge of how to find them. Others said it was Orholam’s own punishment for the Magisterium’s faithlessness.

“But by repeating Vician’s murders, the Magisterium found they could
make
a Prism, and instead of an outsider upending their power every generation, they could choose one of their own to be the new Prism, which they liked very much indeed. Unfortunately, unlike a true Prism’s powers, this made-Prism’s powers would fade over the course of at most seven years. They knew what they made was a fraud, but some thought if Orholam wouldn’t save the world from the luxin storms and warring gods, they would do it themselves. So they renamed their murders
sacrifices
. They found when they sacrificed adults, it might take dozens to fill a single jewel of the Blinding Knife with a color. It was as if days of life and power were being transferred. Then one had the diabolical idea to sacrifice a child, one whose gift for drafting had just awakened. And to the world’s sorrow, it worked. Perhaps it was yet another test for the High Magisters: would they stoop so low?