The Black Prism

Chapter 17

The White was going to kill him.

Gavin deserved killing. The presence of Satrap Garadul himself changed everything. If these had merely been Satrap Garadul’s soldiers, as Gavin and Karris expected, Gavin could have killed the men and left. Satrap Garadul would be furious and would hunt the drafters who had done it, but he would have had no idea who he was after. It might have simply been that there was a powerful drafter living in—what was this worthless little town called? Rekton, that was it. Oh, the irony.

It was too late to grab the spectacles Gavin kept in a pocket against such eventualities. With spectacles, with what he’d done, he was a mysterious polychrome. Without them, he could only be the Prism.

So now the Prism himself had moved against Satrap Garadul, and there was no denying it. Rask Garadul knew him.

“Gavin?” Satrap Rask Garadul said again. There was something odd in his tone of voice, an intensity, maybe a trap. He was dressed in mail with segments of plate worked in. Smaller segments, not requiring articulated joints. His was a poor country.

He’d changed his seal. It used to be his family’s moon and two stars on a field sable, his personalized with a snarling fox. Now both fox and field had been done away with. The king’s new seal was a white chain, broken, on a black field. Gavin knew instantly that the symbol was important. Rask wasn’t merely repudiating his name and his father, whom he’d always despised as weak. This was new. Had he fallen under the sway of the heresy of the old gods that Gavin had heard rumors about? What was he doing? Why was he asking Gavin’s name when he already knew it was him? Was he giving Gavin an opportunity to lie, to say that he wasn’t the Prism?

If Gavin did so, what would Rask Garadul do? Kill him and explain later to the Chromeria that it had been a mistake; through no fault of his own, he’d killed an attacker who’d disavowed being Gavin Guile. If Rask thought he was going to kill Gavin with a handful of drafters and a score of Mirrormen, he was wrong, but what else could it be? Maybe Satrap Garadul was simply as surprised to see Gavin as Gavin was to see him, and he didn’t know how to play this.

If Gavin lied and Rask attacked, Gavin would have no choice but to kill him. If he killed Rask, he’d have to kill all of Rask’s men. And what would the satrapies make of that? More men were coming down the path behind the satrap even now. Gavin couldn’t kill them all. No matter how strong he was, if a hundred men fled in a hundred directions, some of them would get away. Word would get out that the Prism himself had come to Tyrea and assassinated the satrap without provocation.

It didn’t matter that Satrap Garadul was massacring everyone in this town. It was his town; he could do with it as he saw fit. At one time, a Prism could have destroyed or killed one of his satraps at will, but that time was long past. Perhaps back when the Seven Satrapies had really been satrapies. No longer. His power was ceremonial, religious only. The Prism wasn’t supposed to interfere in the internal affairs of a nation—and Gavin had already more than just interfered. If he killed everyone here, and skimmed back to the Chromeria so he got home within a few days of having left, the Chromeria could plausibly deny that he was responsible. It was too far away for him to have come and gone.

He would kill a man he’d never liked; he would stay out of trouble, and the only people to pay for it would be a bunch of soldiers in the most backward of the Seven Satrapies. Well, the boy might have to die too. Otherwise he could blackmail Gavin. And what would Karris think? Well, what did it matter what she thought? She was an impossibility for him already. He’d known he was going to lose what little he had with her today regardless.

The man he’d once been wouldn’t have hesitated.

What would you do, brother?

It had been so long, Gavin wasn’t even sure anymore.

“I am the High Lord Prism Gavin Guile,” Gavin said, bowing slightly, putting one hand behind his back and trying to wave off Karris.

“So, Lord Prism,” Satrap Garadul said loudly, “is this how the Chromeria declares war?”

“Strange that your thoughts should so quickly go to war, Satrap.”

“Strange? No, it’s strange you should call me a satrap. You expelled the rightful satrap, my father, from Garriston, stole that city, our capital and only port, and have denied Tyrea’s people access to the Chromeria. Tyrea is a satrapy no more, and hasn’t been since your war, Prism. I am King Rask Garadul of Tyrea. You have murdered my personal guards. And you call it strange that war should occur to us?” Rask’s voice rose. “Perhaps you think Tyreans are bred to be slaughtered by the Chromeria’s lackeys?”

There was a rumble among the Mirrormen that told Gavin this kind of talk was nothing new.

“But surely the Chromeria wouldn’t send the Prism himself just to kill a few of my men.” Rask pretended to be thinking, but didn’t wait long enough for Gavin to get a word in. “No. The Prism would only come if there was something much more important to accomplish. Something that would ensure the Chromeria’s stranglehold on the Seven Satrapies continued. Tell me, Lord Prism, have you come to assassinate me?”

One doesn’t send a lion to kill a rat.

So help him, Gavin almost said it out loud.

There was a rattle of armor and stomping of hooves as the Mirrormen and drafters pressed in closer to Rask Garadul. Gavin only heard it; he was looking down the hill. He’d avoided looking until now to avoid drawing attention to Karris. By now, she’d probably decided whether she was going to stay or go.

She was almost gone, already starting down the swift-flowing river on a little punt. If Gavin knew Karris, though, she would stop and try to see what happened to him. After all, she was a Blackguard, and though their first responsibility was always to the White, his protection came in a close second. He wondered if she’d left because she trusted him, because she thought he could fend for himself, or because she had her own mission to accomplish and nothing could be allowed to interfere with that.

The stout boy, on the other hand, was now almost directly behind Gavin. After Gavin had saved him once from Mirrormen, apparently he thought Gavin was his best hope to survive.

“You misunderstand me, King Garadul,” Gavin said, turning once more, committed, letting the title stand. “I saw these men slaughtering the innocent citizens of your satrapy. I intervened to save your people. I believed I was doing you a favor.”

“Doing me a favor by murdering soldiers in my uniform?”

“Renegades, surely. Bandits. What sort of madman would burn his own town to the ground?”

Many of the Mirrormen looked away or down and threw furtive glances at King Garadul. Clearly, not all of them had been happy to murder their countrymen. The king flushed. “I am king,” he declared. “I will not have my choices questioned. Especially not by the Chromeria. Tyrea is a sovereign nation. Our internal conflicts are no business of yours.” The soldiers went back to being stony-faced.

“Of course not. It’s simply… novel to find a king burning his own town and people. Murdering children. You can understand my confusion, I’m sure. My apologies for this misunderstanding. The Chromeria serves the Seven Satrapies. Tyrea included.”

It was, perhaps, as well played as Gavin could manage. If they’d been standing before fifty nobles versed in the interplay of nations and respectful of diplomacy, it might have been enough. Rask Garadul would demand some monetary consideration, allowing it had been an honest and understandable error and preserving his own right to have been outraged, and Gavin would be understood to have won. Elegant and clean.

But Rask Garadul was a young man and a new king. He was not standing in front of nobles, but in front of his men. He saw that he was losing, but with the bloody corpses piled on every side and his men looking askance at him, he didn’t think he could afford to lose. “Surely you haven’t come hundreds of leagues simply to patrol our kingdom for bandits? And unannounced, no less. One would think you’d snuck into our kingdom under cover of darkness, like some sort of spy.”

Ah, not stupid either. When on a losing path, take a new one, quick. Gavin glanced once more at the boy, to see how he was holding up. Not well. He was practically quivering with terror. He had eyes only for Rask Garadul. Or was that rage?

“A spy?” Gavin said lightly. “How droll. No no no. One has people to do that sort of thing. One doesn’t do it oneself. Surely you’ve been king long enough to know this?”

“What are you doing here?” King Garadul demanded. Again, shockingly rude if they’d been in a court in any capital in the Seven Satrapies. He glanced at the boy, and Gavin knew he was lost. He could leave—he was the Prism, after all, and even killing thirty of Garadul’s Mirrormen wasn’t enough to justify his seizure or murder. Especially not under questionable circumstances. Rask would risk uniting the satrapies against Tyrea. Killing a satrap would be an outrageous breach; killing the Prism would be an unconscionable one. But Rask felt he was losing, and he was going to make Gavin pay for that. He was going to hurt him as badly as he could.

Gavin would be released; the boy would be killed.

“I saw smoke,” Gavin said. “One of the ways I serve the Seven Satrapies is by dealing with color wights. I came to help.”

“What are you doing in our kingdom?”

“I wasn’t aware you’d closed your borders. Indeed, I wasn’t aware of this new ‘kingdom’ at all. This seems needlessly… hostile. Especially to wish to bar a servant of the realms like myself.” The myth of polite dialogue between disinterested, reasonable neighbors, that myth upon which so much of diplomacy rested, was clearly dead, so to turn the attention away, Gavin stepped right over its corpse. “Are you hiding something, King Garadul?”

“You’re from Rekton, aren’t you, boy?” King Garadul asked. He wasn’t going to play Gavin’s game. “What’s your name? Who’s your father?”

“I’m Kip. I’ve got no father. Most of us don’t. Not since the war.” It sent a lance through Gavin’s guts. He’d almost let himself forget. The False Prism’s War had wiped out dozens of these little towns. All the men, from boys who couldn’t grow a mustache to old men who had to use their spears as canes, had been pressed into service by one side or the other. And he and Dazen had sent them against some of the most talented drafters the world had known. Like lumber to a mill.

“What about your mother, then?” King Garadul asked, irritated.

“Her name was Lina. She helped at a couple of the inns.”

Gavin’s heart stopped. Lina, the crazy woman who’d sent him the note, was dead. This boy, this fearful boy, was supposed to be his son? The only survivor from a town burnt to the ground stood here, and he was the only one who could cause Gavin grief. If Gavin had believed in Orholam, he’d have thought it a cruel prank.

“Lina, yes, I think that was the name of the whore,” King Garadul said. “Where is she?”

“My mother was no whore! And you killed her! You murderer!” The boy looked near tears, though of rage or grief Gavin couldn’t tell.

“Dead? She stole something from me. You’ll take us to your house, and if we can’t find it, you’ll work for me until you pay it off.”

Rask Garadul wasn’t going to have the boy work off his mother’s debt. Gavin had no doubt Rask was lying about the whole thing. It was merely an excuse to take the boy—who, if Rask was a king, was one of the king’s subjects. Most likely, Rask would kill him right in front of Gavin, just to salve his own pride. The boy meant nothing. He could have been a dog or a nice blanket for all Rask cared. He’d become a chit. Part of Gavin was sickened, and part of him reveled in it.

Put me in a situation where I can’t win? Really? You think this is impossible for me? Let’s play.

“The boy goes with me,” Gavin said.

Rask Garadul smiled unpleasantly. He had a gap between his front teeth. He looked more like a bulldog baring its teeth than a man smiling. “You’re going to risk your life for this thief? Hand him over, Prism.”

“Or what?” Gavin asked, deliberately polite, curious, as if he really wondered. Threats so often withered when you pulled them out into the light, naked.

“Or my men will say how there was a big misunderstanding. We had no idea the Prism was here. If only he’d announced his coming. If only he hadn’t been confused and attacked my soldiers. We simply defended ourselves. It was only after his unfortunate death that we discovered our error.”

Gavin smirked. He put a fist to his mouth to cover his chuckle. “No, Rask. There’s a reason I don’t travel with Blackguards: I don’t need them. You were just a snot-nosed boy during the False Prism’s War, so maybe you don’t remember what I can do, but I can tell that some of your men do. They’re the ones who look nervous. If your men attack, I will kill you. The White will be furious with me for a month or two. It will be a diplomatic problem, to be certain, but do you really think anyone cares what happens to the king of Tyrea? ‘King,’ not satrap, and thus a rebel. They’ll only want assurances that it won’t happen to them. We’ll make promises and apologies and pay the tuitions of all Tyrean students for a few years, and that will be the end of it. Your successor will doubtless be less belligerent.”

Rask moved to speak, but Gavin wasn’t about to let him.

“But let’s pretend for a moment that by some chance you actually killed me without being killed in turn. I see what you’re doing here: razing a town so you can raise an army. Founding your own Chromeria. The question is, do you think you’re ready, right now, for war? Because if I go back now, armed only with words, the Spectrum might not believe me. But if you kill me, that will be a more elegant testimony than any I could muster. And do you really think your version of what happened is the only version that’s going to get out? You are a young king, aren’t you? And here you were talking about spies just moments ago.”

Silence stretched cool hands between them. Gavin had won as completely as he’d probably ever won a pure argument.

“The boy is my subject and a thief. He stays.” Garadul’s whole body was quivering with fury. He wasn’t calling Gavin’s bluff. He was simply refusing to lose.

Gavin hadn’t been bluffing. Nine times out of ten, he could probably kill every one of these soldiers and drafters—depending on how good the drafters were. And he’d probably emerge with nothing more than a singed eyebrow. Protecting the child during such a fight was another matter. Is it better that the guilty should perish, or that the innocent should live?

And not all of the Seven Satrapies would be quite as quick to forgive as he’d pretended.

“He’s no thief,” he said, looking to redirect the conversation from a pure I-win/you-lose bifurcation. “He’s got nothing but the clothes on his back. Whatever his mother may or may not have done, it’s nothing to do with him.”

“Easy enough to test, isn’t it?” Rask asked. “Search him.”

From the look on his face, apparently Kip was a thief. Unbelievable. Where was hiding whatever he’d stolen? Between rolls of fat?

“No! It’s the last thing she gave to me! You took everything else. You can’t have it! I’ll kill you first!” There was a wildness in the boy’s voice that Gavin recognized immediately, even before Kip’s irises were flooded with jade green. The boy was going to attack King Garadul, his Mirrormen, and his drafters. Very brave, but more stupid.

King Garadul’s drafters would see it too.

Gavin threw his left hand up in a quick arc, forming a wall of red, green, yellow, and blue luxin intertwined between Kip and King Garadul’s men. With his right hand, he drafted a blue cudgel and clubbed Kip over the back of the head. The boy crumpled. Only Karris, Gavin thought, could have done it faster.

A single red luxin fireball thrown by one of Garadul’s drafters hit the wall and sizzled as it plunged into Gavin’s shield, instantly extinguished.

Everyone else stood stunned. Gavin released the shield. A few of the Mirrormen were looking again at the corpses of their comrades, maybe thinking that their deaths were no fluke. Rask Garadul alone seemed unfazed. He dismounted, walked over to the unconscious boy, and searched him roughly.

Rask Garadul produced a slender rosewood case that had been tucked inside the back of Kip’s belt. He opened it a crack, shot a satisfied smile at Gavin, and tucked it in his own belt. He walked back to his horse and mounted.

“A thief and an attempted assassin. Thank you for your service in foiling the attack, Lord Prism.” King Garadul motioned one of his men toward Kip. “I think that tree should support a noose. Will you be staying for the execution, Gavin?”

So this is where it ends. This is the cost of my sins.

“There was no attempt on your life, King Garadul. We both know that. The boy didn’t even draft. I was merely disciplining him as a Chromeria student for considering drafting without permission. You have the box, and you’ve already murdered the supposed thief, his mother. A harsh punishment to be sure, but this is your satrapy—er, ‘kingdom.’ It’s obvious he knew nothing of it except that his mother gave it to him. Whatever claim you have to him pales in comparison to mine.”

“He’s my subject, and therefore mine to do with as I will.”

Only one card left. Gavin said, “You asked earlier why I came to this boiling latrine you call a country. Kip is the reason. My claim to him is greater than yours. He’s my bastard.”

Rask Garadul’s eyes went stony, and Gavin knew he had won. No man would publicly claim a dishonor if it weren’t true. He also knew from that look, before the man even spoke, that he was going to have to kill Rask Garadul. But not today.

“Your time is finished,” Rask Garadul said. “Yours and the Chromeria’s. You’re done. Light cannot be chained. Know this, Prism: We will take back what you’ve stolen. The horrors of your reign are almost at an end. And when it ends, I will be there. This I swear.”