Chapter 36
Following Grinwoody, Kip walked toward Andross Guile’s apartments with a familiar sense of foreboding. Whenever Kip had tangled with the old man, it seemed he’d gotten the worst of the bargain.
Grinwoody took them past where the entry hall to the Guiles’ apartments used to be. Now that hallway was walled over. Andross Guile had incorporated his wife’s apartments into his own, making one, much larger set of rooms. For some reason, Kip had thought that Andross would keep Felia’s rooms as a shrine to her, untouched.
Apparently he’d given the old spider too much credit.
They walked past Blackguards keeping watch outside the outer doors—and looking none too pleased to be kept so far away—and went inside. Felia Guile’s main room had been converted into an antechamber for supplicants to wait for the promachos to see them.
There were eight noble drafters seated around the room, some chatting, others eyeing the rest with open hostility. Kip recognized them as some of the foremost drafters of each color, though he could only put names to a few. The oldest was gray-haired Lord Spreading Oak, who was calmly reading a scroll of prayers—or, knowing the Chromeria, pretending to read prayers while concealing notes from spies. The rest were in their thirties. There was a dwarf woman whom he’d heard was the new Color for Tyrea. He recognized a Crassos—sister or cousin to the disgraced and executed governor of Garriston—and Akensis Azmith and Jason Jorvis, whose sister had leapt to her death from Gavin’s balcony in scandalous circumstances the night Gavin had married Karris. The Jorvises were alleging that Gavin was somehow responsible for Ana’s death and were demanding recompense. Kip thought they were disgusting. Denial was understandable, but using a suicide to advance your family?
Kip only knew one of the others: Tisis Malargos, the beautiful young fiery Green who’d tried to make him believe failing the Threshing would mean dying, and then had made him fail by handing him back the rope. Not his favorite person. Kip had rejoiced none too quietly when he’d heard his father had fooled her into voting herself off the Spectrum.
Once when Kip had come out of Andross Guile’s presence nearly throwing up, Ironfist had told him that he’d seen satraps coming out of that room looking worse.
No matter how bad Kip’s interactions with Andross Guile, at least Tisis was going to have to interact with him, too. Enjoy that, darling.
He nodded to her pleasantly.
She looked perplexed, and that, too, was sweetness to him.
Grinwoody had already disappeared in front of him, and another slave, dismissed, came out. Kip paused, his bravado leaking out like urine down a coward’s leg.
He braced himself for the smell in that room. And the darkness.
He glanced back at Tisis—because she was easy on the eyes, not because he was worried what she thought of him—and saw a nasty little smile on her face at his fear.
Kip blew out, puffing his cheeks. He’d deserved that. He drafted a torch of superviolet light. Grinwoody opened the way with his perpetual sneer, and Kip stepped forward through the heavy curtains.
Into light.
For a moment, Kip thought Grinwoody must have led them to the wrong place. But as soon as he thought that, he knew he was wrong. He remembered this room, albeit dimly. Literally dimly. That chair, that table, that painting over the mantel, they’d all looked different in the harsh, superfine light of the superviolet torches Kip had drafted, but they were the same ones. That lush carpet, that was where Kip had fallen when the old man slapped the hell out of him in the darkness.
Andross Guile was propped on the edge of his desk, half sitting on it, half standing. It was the pose of a much younger man, but it seemed to fit Andross now. Kip stood, dumbstruck.
Andross looked like he’d lost a decade or two. He looked like, perhaps, a tough old farmer or carpenter. He still had a bit of the paunch Kip had noted long ago, but it looked like it was shrinking fast. He looked powerful, his broad Guile shoulders and strong Guile chin no longer hidden under layer upon layer of clothing. He smiled pleasantly, but though that face was Gavin’s face, just older, the smile wasn’t the same. There was some warmth lacking there. Gavin would grin recklessly, knowing he was getting away with things because he was handsome and powerful, but you always got the sense that he was amused by it all. You got the sense that underneath it, Gavin really liked people. Andross Guile saw through you, to his objective.
“When they told me you were back,” Andross said, “they didn’t tell me how little of you had returned.” He smirked. Of course he’d seen Kip at the meeting of the Spectrum. He must have meant his spies had told him Kip was back before that.
“I see I’m not the only one who’s lost something,” Kip said.
“I meant that as a compliment.”
“Me, too. You were a wight.”
“Kip, a man only gets so many chances to start over in a life, or in a conversation. Don’t miss an important one.”
Beast or not, it was good advice. Kip held his tongue.
Hey! Second time in my life!
“Nine Kings?” Andross asked.
“I’d be glad to, but I don’t have my decks.” Wait, had Andross just asked that as a question? As if Kip could say no?
“I’m short a couple myself,” Andross said. “But I’ve got plenty. You can borrow whichever you like.”
“What are the stakes this time?” Kip asked. He was a little rusty on the game, but if he had enough time to look through decks, he could at least still tell a strong deck from a weak one.
“So you didn’t steal it,” Andross said.
“Huh?”
“Someone broke into my apartments and stole a few valuables. They also grabbed one of my favorite decks. It seemed like the kind of thing you might do.”
And he’d learned from Kip’s expression alone that Kip wasn’t the culprit.
They sat, and Andross put forward two pairs of decks. “I thought we might try one of the old duels: the Twins, or Gods and Beasts.” They were classic pairings. In such games, the decks had equal relative strengths, though very different strategies. Each player was expected to have memorized all the cards in each deck. Luck still played a part, but a player with a sharp head for numbers could judge the probabilities that their opponent would draw a card to counter any particular strategy. It was the kind of game where Kip would get slaughtered, even though he knew most of the cards in each.
“Gods and Beasts,” Kip said.
“Interesting choice,” Andross said. And Kip saw that Andross thought Kip was making a comment even in this. Of course, they had just faced both gods and beasts.
Kip had chosen it because he thought it was more fun.
Now I’m being overestimated.
He wasn’t sure if that was better, or worse.
“Which deck do you want, grandson?” Andross asked.
Now that Kip knew his grandfather thought Kip was making a point by which one he chose, he thought about it differently. “Odd that they’re on opposite sides, isn’t it? In my experience, the gods and beasts have fought together.”
“Not odd at all,” Andross said. “What can oppose a god but a beast?”
“Is that how you justify it?” Kip asked. No filter.
“When soft men sit in peace and criticize my choices ages hence, that they live to do so will be all the proof necessary that I did right,” Andross said. He picked up a deck. “A man who hesitates could never become a god, so you’ll be beasts.” He shuffled each deck as Kip watched, then dealt the cards. “No timers. I wish to have a leisurely match, and we’ve seen what mistakes you make under pressure.”
Kip didn’t touch his cards, didn’t turn around. “Tell Grinwoody not to stand behind me.”
Andross laughed. “You make me wonder, Kip, if I posed such dilemmas for my father Draccos. So smart sometimes, so clever, so adult, and then the next minute an utter belligerent child, striking out and destroying things more good for him than for anyone else, simply because he’s been vexed.” He waved to Grinwoody, who moved away from his cheater’s perch over Kip’s shoulder.
“Who starts?” Kip asked. He picked up his hand.
“I will. Privilege of age.”
Kip threw down his hand. “You dealt me eight.” It was one card too many.
“Did I? Age dulls us all, I suppose.” He grinned, and this time there was real playfulness in it. So said the man who, just a few months ago, had looked twenty years older than he did now.
Kip couldn’t help but grin. A little.
“Wasn’t a good hand anyway, huh?” Andross asked. He picked up Kip’s hand and shuffled again quickly, then dealt him out seven.
“Lousy,” Kip said.
Andross laughed, and Kip remembered how the man had said that he liked Kip—a little. He realized then that Andross had been testing him, seeing if he’d cheat. Or perhaps Andross wouldn’t have thought of it as cheating. Maybe he would have thought of it as taking advantage of an opponent’s error. But it had been a bad hand, which was why Kip had thrown the whole hand down for a re-deal rather than extend the deck and have Andross take out one card to bring him down to seven.
The promachos set the sun counter to predawn, and played his first card. “So, grandson,” Andross said. “The Chromeria finds itself about to enter a fight for its life, and most of them still don’t realize the fact. What do you see that needs fixing?”
Kip cocked his head to the side. “Are you serious? You really want my ideas?”
“Is it so surprising?”
“Yes, it is.”
“There are many things you can learn from slaves and spies, and I have learned them all. But some things can only be seen with one’s own eyes. My eyes have been—”
“Broken?” Kip couldn’t help but get in the little jab about Andross hiring that assassin from the Order, Mistress Helel, Kip saw Grinwoody tense, but Andross didn’t miss a beat.
“Unavailable. I may have missed things.” But he was examining Kip sharply. “Boy, I am ferocious when crossed, I don’t deny it. I find being led by fools intolerable. But I am magnanimous in victory. I do what needs to be done to win and without putting on a false display of sorrow or reluctance; you think that makes me hideous? Others pay homage to common pieties with their lips but betray them by their actions. I am simply more forthright. Orholam needs even honest men, does he not?”
His eyes twinkled. That inversion, so typical of this family. Gavin would hint at irreligiosity and flirt with the line. Andross would breeze right past it, but if his approach saved them all regardless, who was to say that Orholam wasn’t using him? Their ends were the same.
He was the promachos. Surely, if only to preserve his own power, he would fight the Color Prince.
So Kip told him about the classes, how the magisters were lecturing on topics that had nothing to do with the conflict at hand, that only the engineers seemed to grasp the problems. He also thought that they should have a whole contingent of battle drafters, not only the Blackguard and a few isolated drafters who learned the arts of war for their sponsors. He thought that they should open all the books of forbidden magics, and start teaching them—or at the least how to defend against them.
“And who’s to teach all these new battle drafters?” Andross asked.
“The Blackguard,” Kip said. “At least, those not directly involved with recovering my father. If they’re not busy protecting the Prism and the Colors, might as well put them to use until spring. They’ll complain, but training others is sometimes even better than being trained. And speaking of the Blackguard, there’s a slave who scrubbed out. You should put him in with my initiate cohort.”
“What’s his story?”
“Winsen was one of the best scrubs, but his master was a horror. He was also deeply in debt, and he needed to sell Winsen into the Blackguard to avoid being ruined. Winsen failed on purpose.”
“And you wish to reward treachery?”
“I think what made him a bad slave will make him a great Blackguard. And we need Blackguards.”
The game proceeded to noon on the sun counter—the time when the most powerful cards could be easily played. Kip got a sea demon. As long as there were other cards on the table, the sea demon had to attack, but if only you had another card on the table, the sea demon would attack your own card. Like all the best daggers, it was double-edged.
“They say Gunner killed a sea demon,” Andross said.
“I’ve heard that,” Kip said. “Do you think it’s true?”
“I think it’s possible. Carcasses have floated to shore before, so the beasts are not immortal.”
“How was Gunner supposed to have done it?” Kip asked.
“They say he filled a raft full of the ship’s whole store of powder and floated it behind the Aved Barayah five hundred paces. Something about that little raft irritated the sea demon, I’ve never heard exactly what—apparently this Gunner has a penchant for irritating those more powerful than he. He waited until the sea demon surfaced and shot the raft with a cannonball just as the sea demon swallowed it. In heavy seas, if the tales be believed.”
Kip made a moue of appreciation.
Andross said, “I’d wager it was more like two hundred paces. Regardless, impressive. Another version says he rode on the raft himself, singing sea shanties and howling curses at some whore he’d loved, and lit the fuse himself, jumping out of the way at the last moment. But sailors and a straight-told tale have but passing acquaintance.”
“I’d believe five hundred paces,” Kip said. “I’ve seen the man shoot.”
Andross had a veritable army of wights on his side of the table. Plenty of fodder for Kip’s sea demon, so Kip played his heavy galleon to be able to sail past Andross’s defenses and attack him directly on the next round.
“I want something of you, Kip,” Andross said.
“Other than learning if I stole from you and crushing me in a few games?”
“Hard as it may be to believe, I want more than even your excellent company.” He said it flat, like he might have been mocking, or might have meant the compliment.
Kip found himself grinning despite himself. This was the man who’d tried to have him killed, who’d tried to kill him, who had lost Gavin for all of them. And yet Kip grinned.
And Andross grinned back. God or beast, the man appreciated when someone appreciated his sense of humor.
“Well…” Kip prompted. He couldn’t take the suspense.
Andross looked up from the cards. “I want to know where my other grandson is.”
A kick in the groin. “Other?” Kip asked. Had he hesitated too long?
His face must have blanched, because Andross grinned wolfishly. “I love surprising people. It was really one of the greatest losses of my seclusion. So much more satisfying when I can see your face.”
“Let’s talk about that seclusion,” Kip said, suddenly ready to do combat. To hell with this old man and his tricks. “Grinwoody, get away.” He didn’t turn to look at the slave. “Grinwoody, we both know I could have had you put out with forty lashes or worse when I spoke to the Spectrum, if I’d wanted to. I spared you. Get the hell out of here. Your betters are speaking.”
A moment passed. Kip saw Andross nod his head.
Grinwoody left, and Kip felt a little stab of pleasure.
So it begins. The opiate of power. Command and obedience, in a dance until you climb the greased pole high enough that all must obey you, and you must obey none.
“Thinking deep thoughts?” Andross asked.
“Am I so easy to read?” Kip asked.
“In your unguarded moments. You are young yet, trapped in that twilight of having adult thoughts and insights quite beyond what others think you should have, and being utterly, wildly out of control of your self. At your age, the emotions have a power greater than the intellect can tame. Slowly, slowly, they will become yours. Yours to master or at least to hide. If you survive so long.”
Kip looked at the cards, but he didn’t see them. “At moments, you sound so like my father that I despair.”
“At moments, you sound so like him that I rejoice,” Andross said. “I have hope for you, Kip. But there are hard lessons between where you now sit and feel, and where you shall stand and act. You must become master to that within you, not its puppet. In the meantime, your mouth is a loose cannon, Kip the Lip.”
“I know. I’m trying to—”
“Shut up and listen. You react exactly the wrong way. You say startling things, often rude things, but sometimes with stunning insight. Someday, you will control that tongue. In the meantime, when you say something that shocks your interlocutor, instead of being embarrassed and turning your eyes inward, pay attention! When you drop an explosive truth, don’t look at yourself. Package away your feeble blushes and your horror for later; in the moment, watch what others do.”
Instantly, Kip was embarrassed of his own feebleness and foolishness. Exactly what Andross was speaking about. So he blurted, “Why are you acting like my friend?”
“Not your friend,” Andross answered instantly. “Your grandfather, for all it costs us both.”
“You fear me,” Kip said.
The astonishment on Andross’s face was priceless. Then he laughed. “I see. You were trying it. No Kip. And yes. Not fear of you. Fear that you may put this family in danger, though for the nonce, if you do something horrific, everyone knows that you don’t act for me. As you grow older and more refined, that perceived gap will close. So in order for you to be of use to me, you must grow faster than the conventional wisdom believes possible.”
Oh, no pressure then.
But Kip realized this was exactly what his father had been trying to protect him from when he’d suggested Kip enter the Chromeria under an assumed name. And Kip had blindly wanted to be thrust directly into the middle of all of it. Had demanded it, long before he was ready.
“What are your plans for me?” Kip asked.
“You asked that before.”
“You were a wight then.”
Andross Guile paused. Looked at the cards. “Do you think, grandson, that all my rage was born of red luxin?” He affixed Kip with his many-colored eyes: a background of shocking natural blue making a canvas for sub-red, red, orange, and yellow entwined like serpents.
“I won’t tell you anything for free,” Kip said. He swallowed. “We trade. Like adults.”
“Playing an adult while playing an adult while playing an adult, fair enough,” Andross said. He played a Flawless Mirror.
It didn’t make any sense. His deck had no Prisms, for one, and if he wanted to play a burning ray, it would take two turns. He’d be dead by then, killed by Kip’s heavy galleon.
Was he deliberately giving Kip a victory in the game so Kip would feel good about something after this talk?
Kip said, “I’ll tell you about your other grandson … if you give me written permission to all the libraries in the Chromeria. All of them.”
Andross raised his eyebrows. “There are things in some of those libraries that could put the whole Chromeria at risk.”
“All the more reason that those who defend her should know them.”
“A full accounting of your half brother,” Andross said. “All you know.”
“Done,” Kip said.
“Not done. That’s your opening bid. Here’s my counter. I told you how I like surprises. I want to buy one from you.”
“What’s that?” Kip asked. This didn’t sound good.
“Don’t tell Karris about Zymun.”
What, as if Kip wanted to tell Karris about Zymun? ‘Hi, stepmother, I met your real son. The one you’ve apparently been trying to hide? The bastard? Oh, and he’s the worst person I’ve ever met. He tried to kill me. Oh, he also tried to murder your husband, his father.’
“Done,” Kip said quickly. “If.”
Andross didn’t ask, ‘If what?’ Instead, he said, “Of course, if you tell someone else who may tell her, that’s an abrogation of our agreement.”
I’m a turtle-bear, not a weasel. “Of course,” Kip said irritably.
“And the if?” Andross asked.
“You’re going to send out Blackguard on skimmers, looking for my father.”
“Sea chariots,” Andross corrected. “Yes, of course.”
Something about his tone told Kip it was half a lie. Andross hadn’t been planning on sending the Blackguards out—or if he had, he’d been planning to send them to look for something else. But now, called on it, he would send them. So that was a victory, Kip guessed. “I get to go with them.”
“You’ve too much to learn here. It’s what your father would have demanded for you.”
“I won’t be moved on this. If I have to, I’ll make my own skimmer and search for him by myself.”
Andross pursed his lips. Kip was testing his patience. “You may go once. On the time of my choosing.”
“And you swear they’ll be looking for him?”
Pique flashed through Andross Guile’s eyes. Kip had caught him. He’d already said he would do it, so holding back would expose the lie.
“Done. I so swear,” Andross Guile said.
“And done,” Kip said.
“Now, tell me what you know, and let me see how good of a deal I’ve made blind.”
“Zymun was alive, last I saw him,” Kip said. “He captured me, after the Battle of Ru, after Gunner threw me back into the sea. Zymun found me on the beach and took me prisoner. He was fighting for the Color Prince, you know.”
“I do. I’ll claim I sent him to spy, if it suits me.”
Kip already felt like he’d got the worse end of things. What if he didn’t find anything in the libraries?
He told his grandfather the whole story of his capture and his time on the boat with Zymun. “And he’s a serpent. There is no human kindness in him. He mimics feelings as if he had them, but he is nothing inside. He is thinner than parchment, and more evil than—”
“Than?” Andross asked.
“Than an old spider bloated with poison,” Kip said flatly, as if it might or might not apply to Andross himself.
Andross gave him, surprisingly, no reaction to that at all. Turning to the game, he set his cards attacking—all of them, abandoning any hope of defense. Kip moved his hand to his counters, hesitated.
“No,” Andross said. “They attack each other.” And so, instead of attacking Kip to bring his life down to one counter, Andross’s six wights tore each other to shreds.
“Oh hell,” Kip said.
“Your turn.”
Kip’s sea demon attacked first, and lacking any opponents, had to attack Kip’s heavy galleon. It sank it easily. Kip looked at his cards. He had nothing. But that didn’t mean it was over. The card that Andross needed was Burning Focus to equip to the Flawless Mirror. That card was in the deck, and Andross was playing like he had it, but that didn’t mean he did.
“Do you want to resign?” Andross said.
“Never.” Kip had just drawn Amun-Tep, but with the sun waning, it would take him two turns to draw the power needed to play the character. Damn! He played a hulking duelist in mirror armor instead: Grath Hrozak. From his studies, Kip knew the real man had murdered hundreds personally, not counting the deaths he’d ordered. He’d served the Tyrean Empire, long before Lucidonius. He’d been yanked in and out of command because he was so brutal. He’d never taken a city but that he’d killed most everyone in it through crucifixion or flaying or both.
It was Andross’s turn. He looked at the cards and sighed. “Take this lesson to heart, grandson.” He played Burning Focus, equipped it to the Flawless Mirror. With the sun counters still just off noon, it gave him enough damage to go through Grath Hrozak, absorb what little damage was reflected by the mirror armor, and kill Kip.
“And what lesson is that?” Kip asked, barely able to contain himself. That had been a lucky sequence. “That you sometimes have to sacrifice all your men in order to win? That sometimes even a beast like Grath Hrozak can’t save you? That I should never play the mighty Andross Guile in Nine Kings?”
“I’ll bring your brother here, as soon as I can recover him. And recover him I shall. I can’t do everything our family needs to do alone. I need a right hand. Other options … haven’t panned out. There is only Zymun … and you. I will make one of you the next Prism. From what you’ve told me of Zymun, if I choose him instead, it will cost you your life. He will not want a rival at his back.”
Kip felt a chill. He remembered Janus Borig saying, ‘I keep trying to draw you as the next Prism, and I can’t. You won’t be the Prism, Kip.’ He lifted his chin, sneered. “So, that’s what this is? You expect me to curry your favor now? You think adding a lump of sugar to the whip is going to change everything? You’ve tried to kill me before.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve talked about that little misunderstanding—”
“—and failed. Don’t forget that, old man.”
Andross Guile’s lips were a tight white line. A dangerous silence followed. “This warning was a courtesy. I gave it in part because of that misunderstanding. I’m not looking for a puppet or a sniveling lackey, Kip. For the most part, I was deeply satisfied with your father’s leadership. A weak man a poor Prism makes. To proffer me your respect is no sign of servility, grandson, it’s a sign of wisdom.” Andross Guile walked to his desk, scribbled a note, and handed it to Kip. “Make yourself strong, Kip. You have little time. You’re dismissed. Give that to Grinwoody on your way out.”
“How do I convince you that I should be the next Prism?” Kip asked. Not that he cared. Not that he was afraid.
“I’ll give you a task after you return my stolen cards—”
“I thought you believed me that I didn’t—” Kip stopped as he saw the ugly look that passed across Andross Guile’s face at being interrupted. “Sorry.”
“I believe you didn’t steal them. Probably the thief was my dear son. Unless you’re a better liar than I think. Regardless, I want them back—and I want the new cards. Make it your mission. You have until Sun Day. Naming a Prism-elect will wait no longer. If you don’t give me the cards—all of them—it won’t be you.”
“You really have given up on my father.”
“A great strategist once said every military disaster could be summed up in two words: ‘Too late.’ When a plan fails, you don’t wring your hands, you move to the next one.”
My father was merely a plan that failed?
Kip felt no rage, which surprised him. Instead, he thought: That’s your son. That’s your son, and that’s all you can say? Was it so simple and cold for his grandfather, or was there a heart, somewhere deep inside him, hidden, broken?
Instead of speaking it now, he asked, “What was the lesson? From the game, I mean.”
“Was there a lesson, or were there many?” Andross asked, as if to himself. “Here’s one: you back a man into a corner and show him no way out? When a man is utterly in your power but not yet dead? That’s when you watch him closest.” Andross tugged several cards out of his sleeves and tossed them onto the table.
They were all the best cards in his deck. “Now get out…” He turned his back before he finished the sentence. “…grandson. Send in that Malargos girl. Tisis? I’m going to see just how badly she wants to be the next White. If I don’t miss my guess she’ll be dressed to please.”