The Burning White (92 page)

“If I punch you in the face, do I lose automatically?” Kip asked.

Andross merely considered him with his dead, shark’s eyes.

“Aram’s men murdered a friend of mine,” Kip said. “One of the Lightguards demanded to see me, and Goss said he was me. They shot him. No other words spoken. So I know all this is a game to you, but you can go fuck yourself.”

“You want justice for that? Fine. These are small matters for men such as us. Tell you what: as a gesture of goodwill, I’ll execute the man who pulled the trigger, and Aram too. Done and done. The triggerman immediately. Aram’s an officer too difficult to replace on the eve of a battle, but if he lives through the battle, he’ll be hanged next week.”

Orholam’s balls, but Andross Guile was cold.

“I don’t know what my problem is,” Kip said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with you now. You’ve hit me, you’ve stolen things from me, you’ve cheated me, you’ve threatened to enslave my friend, your people have tried to murder me several times—”

“Only once on my orders,” Andross said, “but do go on.”

“And yet I still keep trying to engage you as if you had a soul. Why is that? I’m not usually a stupid man. When I spent a little time with Zymun, I knew instantly that he was all serpent. He’s one of those people incapable of the higher human emotions. He’s defective. Born crippled, if you will. Soulless. It’s not really his fault, is it? He could never be much better than he is. He sees what he wants, and he can’t help but try to take it. But you . . . you don’t have that excuse. If you’re a monster, you made yourself monstrous. You had a choice. More than one, I’d bet. And you chose darkness every time. I should hate you to the depths of my soul, and yet I don’t. I actually like you, and I’m stuck here wondering, is that because you still have that preternatural Guile charm that I really wish I’d inherited, or is it because somehow you’re my blind spot, or is it because intuitively, beyond all rationale, I see some spark of life deep in you? You should have been more than a great man; you should have been a good man.”

“Your turn.”

They played the next few turns in silence.

Andross was playing slowly. It wasn’t like him. It was, however, a good strategy when your deck is significantly stronger—

There was a sharp rap on the wall. Grinwoody announcing someone.

And then Kip saw that Andross really was running the game as a simulation of the battle to come. The old man wouldn’t attack until noon, when he could play a bane, just as the White King wasn’t attacking until Sun Day.

Andross really thought he was going to get some insight about the battle from this.

“High Lord, there’s someone here to see you,” Grinwoody said.

Andross’s lip curled. “Grinwoody, I didn’t think that you could possibly fail to understand what this game means. Or what ‘I’m not to be disturbed’ means.”

“It’s Satrap Corvan Danavis, my lord.”

“What?! How did he get here so fast?”

“Upon your command that you not be disturbed, I turned away the messenger bringing news his ships had been spotted, and also the messenger who announced Danavis was coming directly here. You’ve been cloistered for quite some time.”

“Grinwoody.” There was a warning in Andross’s tone.

“My apologies, my lord,” Grinwoody said. “I’ll show him in immediately.”

Andross bundled his cards back together, squared the edges, and laid them facedown on the table. He put his teacup on them, and drew on his zigarro while Kip followed his lead, each watching the other closely to make sure neither took advantage of the disruption to cheat. Then they both rose and moved away from the table, each giving it a wide berth, and for the same reason.

“Kip!” Corvan cried out when he saw him.

Kip’s heart warmed instantly. Kip knew a lot of people who’d changed monumentally in the last two or three years, but Corvan was almost exactly the same—except he’d grown out his mustache and hung little gold beads into it, as he’d worn it long years ago before he’d moved to Rekton. In a world of friends and foes as shifting as the mists, he was solid. Here was a man who was simply himself, whose idea of hiding his identity had been moving away and shaving off his famed mustache, without even changing his name. His eyes held the same old mix of sternness and contentment, with an undertone of abiding grief, but there were no regrets there. He looked strong.

They embraced, and Kip felt like a child again for half a moment. Except now he was taller than his old guardian.

“I hear those books you kept pilfering from my shelves have done you some good,” Corvan said as he released Kip. “Though I’ve not heard a tactician’s account of the Battle of Dúnbheo yet. Everything I hear is all giant bears and last-second traps and magic.”

“I’ll be happy to fill you in,” Kip said, letting the man turn to the promachos.

“Satrap Danavis,” Andross said respectfully. “Welcome to the Chromeria. We are so sorry to hear about your bereavement.”

“I received your funerary gifts. They helped ease my burdens, Pro-machos. Thank you.”

Andross gestured that it was nothing.

“Now I feel like an asshole for not sending anything,” Kip said. “I’m sorry, sir. I only found out you’d even remarried at the same time I heard of your wife’s passing—yesterday. I’m so sorry.”

“They were the best days of my life,” Corvan said. “And we knew they would be short. She told me all along, though she couldn’t guess the details until recently. An assassin from the Order of the Broken Eye, we both believe.”

“From the Order?!” Kip demanded, irate.

“A Seer is most dangerous to the most dangerous people,” Corvan said.

“Grandfather, you didn’t hire them for that, did you?” Kip asked.

The air suddenly tingled as if they were all waiting for a bolt to strike and its thunderhead to blow out all the windows.

“No,” Andross said coolly.

“Oh, good,” Kip said. “He had to be thinking it, and I thought it would be good for him to see your face when I asked. I thought he might be too polite to ask.”

“On the matter of my wife, I wouldn’t let etiquette—or anything—get in the way of my vengeance,” Corvan said.

“I only ask,” Kip said, “since you’ve had such a good working relationship with the Order in the past.”

Again, the clouds boiled, but no thunderbolt struck.

“When one is in power, one must frequently deal with unsavory elements,” Andross said, “worse than assassins, even. Which is why sometimes one must hold one’s nose and deal even with traitors. But that doesn’t make one a traitor oneself, does it, Corvan?”

Corvan Danavis was quivering with the effort to contain himself. “A traitor? You refer to King Ironfist, I suppose?”

“He brought you here, didn’t he?”

“I’ve arrived here with an army, just in time, from what I hear. Without Ironfist’s fleet, we’d not be arriving for another two months.”

“Has your army disembarked, then?” Andross asked.

“No. I came on ahead. The White seemed eager that I should see the state of the defenses immediately—”

“And
King
Ironfist doubtless told you to go on ahead.”

“Yes,” Corvan said.

“Without your soldiers. Who are isolated on their own ships, perhaps? Ships disarmed, ostensibly so they have room for more soldiers?” Andross suggested.

Corvan froze as the implications dawned on him. “He . . . he wouldn’t.”

“You’ve not brought us an army, Satrap,” Andross said. “You’ve brought Ironfist ten thousand hostages. You were right, Grinwoody. All his years serving at the highest level, and Ironfist has no loyalty at all.”

“It grieves me to be right,” Grinwoody said. “He is of my own tribe, my lord.”

“Well, we’ll deal with all that presently,” Andross said. “First things first.”

“He’s disembarking himself to negotiate the surrender,” Corvan said. “Or . . . at least that’s what he told me.”

“He meant it. Only, he didn’t mean
his surrender
,” Andross said icily.

Corvan cursed under his breath.

“But he’s disembarking? When? Soon?” Kip asked. “Shit! We’ve got to finish this game quickly, grandfather. I’ve got to make sure my commander doesn’t find out Ironfist’s here.”

“I don’t imagine King Ironfist will have any trouble with one of your puppies,” Andross said.

“This one he might,” Kip said.

“You’re in the middle of something?” Corvan asked. “I’m sorry I interrupted with such bad news. You’re in the middle of . . . a game?” He didn’t bother to conceal a note of disbelief.

“Hardly,” Kip said, “but please stay. That is, if you don’t mind watching.”

“I’d be delighted to see the era’s greatest mind at work.”

“Thank you—” Kip and Andross said at the same time. They even sort of inclined their heads the same way. That was weird. Kip hadn’t been around this man at all growing up.

The blood is strong.

Corvan said, “Your pardon, my lords, a slip of the tongue. ‘Greatest
minds
.’ ”

“After I win,” Kip said, “I’d like to go over some ideas on the Jaspers’ defense with you.”

They took their seats, Grinwoody having already scuttled about on his little roach legs to provide a chair for the satrap.

Kip brushed the art on the cards with his fingertips in frustration. He had to settle for playing a Lightguard, though the sun was high enough he could have played a more powerful card if he’d had it.

Andross played the Red Bane.

Kip flopped Cannon Island onto the table. “This deck isn’t good enough. If Janus Borig had had time to complete—”

“No sniveling,” Andross said. “You had first choice of decks.”

“Here I could have been king of Blood Forest,” Kip muttered.

“I think we’ve had quite enough of kings,” Andross said. He dropped another bane, and attacked.

Kip didn’t defend, soaking up the damage like he was the damned Turtle-Bear.

“Why isn’t there a Turtle-Bear card?” Kip asked suddenly. Surely he had to be important enough to get a card, right?

“A what?” Andross asked, not that interested.

“Come on, you were looking at it earlier.” Kip put down his cards, pushing his chair back. He showed off his tattoo. Swapping spectacles of various colors, he quickly worked through the superviolet, which gave the edges their nice borders, then as he drew in blue light, zigzags of blue shot through his forearm, just above the wrist. A rounded rectangle. Kip drew green, and color suffused the outlines. Yellow, and the colors gained richness.

Corvan Danavis inhaled sharply. “What did you call that card?” he asked.

Kip ignored him until he finished, and the tattoo stood sharp and clear on his forearm. “ Turtle-Bear. I’m the Turtle-Bear,” Kip said.

“Where did you get that?” Andross asked easily.

“Fighting Abaddon,” Kip said, as if it were a small thing. “Like I told you.”

“The art style’s Atashian, isn’t it?” Corvan asked. “I recognize that creature, though I’ve never heard it called a turtle-bear.”

“What
have
you heard it called?” Kip asked, though now, in looking at it, it seemed different than he remembered. The Turtle-Bear that had been seared into his arm had been a fat, round little thing, furry in all the wrong places, awkward as Kip himself. Now it seemed elongated, stronger, not nearly so ridiculous, like a juvenile . . .

“My maternal grandmother was Atashian,” Corvan said. “She had this ancient brooch that looked like that. She told me Atashians believed men were born with two natures. One was usually symbolized by the monkey: the chattering dung-flingers of the forest—social, passionate, but all-reliant on the tribe, attacking those the group disliked without an independent thought in their heads, warm, caretaking, but always looking to the group for approval. The other nature was usually symbolized by the snake: cold, dispassionate, patient in ambush, not shaken from the truth by anyone or anything, but also uncaring, heartless, rejecting company heedlessly. They believed that only when one brought these natures together, not lukewarm but cold and hot in the appropriate times, fur and scale, could one be truly wise. Only by bringing the contrary animal natures together could one become fully human, whether monkey and snake, or dog and scorpion, or turtle and bear. And the greatest of these become dragons.”

“A Dragon would be helpful now,” Kip said lightly. He looked at Andross Guile, who was watching cold as an asp. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a Dragon in the deck I missed?”

Andross’s eyes glittered darkly.

“Luxin-reactive tattoo dyes. A nice parlor trick,” Andross said. “An art lost long ago. We’ll talk about who in Blood Forest holds this secret, if we live long enough. In the meantime, let’s finish the game, shall we? Here, this will drain your excess luxin.”

Andross handed Kip a little cylinder much like the testing sticks used in the Threshing. Kip pressed his finger firmly on the black point and watched his colors swirl down into the stick’s bone-white body. Unlike the ivory of the testing sticks, though, here the colors dyed the stick fully their color and then faded in turn, swirling away like smoke.

They all waited until every color was gone, and then a few more seconds.

Without looking up, Andross said, “Grinwoody. The integrity of our game is intact?”

“Absolutely, my lord. I watched most carefully.”

Andross picked up his own deck and motioned that Kip could do the same.

Kip picked up his cards.

He had two turns left before Andross won. No more stalling.

Andross played another bane. That he appeared to have an insurmountable lead wasn’t slowing him down.

Kip supposed he could should feel flattered for that.

He did not feel flattered.

Andross pushed his eligible cards forward to attack Kip’s sad selection of defenders. Cannon Island could take out the Blue Bane but would be destroyed. Kip’s Lightguards and galleys couldn’t stop the other bane, and any of the Lightning cards Kip might have could only take out a few of Andross’s galleys, which was pointless.

The game was over. Kip was dead. He was going to lose everything.

Kip didn’t lay down his cards, though. He played two Lightning cards, killing the attacking galleys.