The Blinding Knife

Chapter 15

The Color Prince was rubbing his temples. Liv Danavis couldn’t take her eyes off of him. No one could. The man was practically carved of pure luxin. Blue plates covered his forearms, made spiky gauntlets for his fists. Woven blue luxin made up much of his skin, with yellow flowing in rivers beneath the surface, constantly replenishing the rest. Flexible green luxin made up his joints. Only his face was human, and barely at that. His skin was knotted with burn scars, and his eyes-halos so broken as to be absent-were a swirl of every color, not just his irises, but the whites as well. Right now, those sclera swirled blue, then yellow as he sat on the great chair in the audience chamber of the Travertine Palace, deciding how to split up the city he’d just conquered-and found nearly empty.

“I want the twelve lords of the air to oversee redistribution of the city. Lord Shayam will preside. First, the plunder. Those who fled Garriston took almost nothing with them-it’s all here. Some of it will travel with the army, but the rest shouldn’t be left to rot. Sell what can be sold, and distribute the rest in the most equitable way possible among the remaining Garristonians. The twelve lords are to decide who among the new settlers will be given leases to which properties. The richer areas and homes will require a fee up front; the poorer will be allowed six months before they begin paying.

“Lady Selene,” he said, turning to a blue/green bichrome who hadn’t yet broken the halo. She was Tyrean, with wavy dark hair and a dusky complexion, striking but odd, eyes too far apart, small mouth. She curtsied. “You’re in charge of all the greens until we leave the city. Six weeks. In that time, I expect you to dredge the key irrigation canals and repair the locks on the river. I want this city to flower next spring. The first rains of autumn may come any day. Consult with Lord Shayam. New plants will need to be brought in, perhaps soil as well. Do what you can with the labor provided in the time we have.”

Lady Selene curtsied deeply and left immediately.

And on it went, all morning. Liv sat among five advisers to the Color Prince’s left. Other than those advisers, no one else was allowed into the great hall. The prince wanted few people to see the entirety of his plans. Why Liv was one of the privileged few, she had no idea. She was the daughter of General Corvan Danavis, and the Color Prince had made no secret of the fact that he hoped he could recruit Gavin’s old enemy to his side, but Liv thought it was more than that. She’d switched sides before the Battle of Garriston, even fighting for the army trying to reclaim the city-but she’d done it in return for the Color Prince saving her friends. She didn’t deserve this kind of trust.

But she did find the whole thing fascinating. Often, the prince would call forth a courtier to give him more information on some point. He cared nothing for previous laws, and little for how things had been done traditionally, but he showed a keen interest in commerce and trade and taxation and agriculture: all the things needed to provide for his people and his army.

Summoning his military commanders, he elevated one of his most talented young commanders to general, and then tasked him with securing Tyrea’s roads and rivers. He wanted trade to be able to flow unfettered up and down the whole of the Umber River, and bandits to be stamped out mercilessly.

In some ways, Liv knew, it was merely trading many bandits for one. The prince’s men would doubtless collect taxes just as the bandits charged passage fees. But if they did it fairly, and didn’t murder the farmers and traders for their goods, the country would still be better off, whatever you called it.

He set more greens and yellows to clear the river itself, under their own command. If the prince was a bad man, he was a bad man taking a long view, because even though Liv didn’t understand everything that he was ordering, it was clear to her that he was sacrificing a huge number of his drafters and fighting men for the benefit of Tyrea. In the long run, her cynical superviolet nature told her, that would benefit him. An army on the march doesn’t make its own food, and can’t always count on plunder to pay its men, so having a strong economic base would magnify his power later.

“Lord Arias,” the Color Prince said, “I want you to select a hundred of your priests, young enough to be zealous, old enough to have absorbed the basics, and send them out to every satrapy to spread the good news of the coming freedom. Concentrate on the cities. Send natives where possible. Let them know what kind of opposition they’ll face. Expect martyrs in Dazen’s cause, and begin preparing another wave of zealots. I want regular reports, and send handlers with them. We’ll contract the Order of the Broken Eye where persecution is too great, yes?”

Lord Arias bowed. He was Atashian, with his people’s typical bright blue eyes, olive skin, and a plaited, beaded beard. “My prince, how would you like us to proceed on Big Jasper and in the Chromeria itself?”

“The Chromeria you leave alone. Others will handle that. Big Jasper should be handled with utmost care. I want our people there to be more eyes and ears than mouths, you understand? Your best people only on Big Jasper. I want them to grumble in the taverns and the markets, or join those who are already grumbling, barely whispering that our cause might have some merit. Identify those with grievances whom we might recruit, but take greatest care. They’re not fools there. Expect the Chromeria to try to plant spies.”

“Will you authorize the Order there?” Lord Arias asked.

“The Order’s best people are already there or on their way there,” the prince said. “But I expect you to use them like a needle, not a cudgel, understood? If our operations are exposed too early, the whole enterprise is doomed. The fate of the revolution lies in your hands.”

Lord Arias stroked his beard, making the yellow beads click. “I believe I should base my own operations from Big Jasper, then.”

“Agreed.”

“And I’ll need financing.”

“Which, quite predictably, is where we run into problems. I can give you ten thousand danars. I know it’s a fraction of what you’ll need, but I have people who need to be fed. Be creative.”

“Fifteen thousand?” Lord Arias countered. “Simply buying a house on Big Jasper…”

“Make do. I’ll send more in three months if I can.”

Most of the rest of the day was more mundane: orders for how the army was to camp and where, money requests for food and new clothing and new shoes and new horses and new oxen, and money owed to smiths and miners and foreign lords and bankers who wanted their loans repaid. Others came asking to be authorized to press the locals and the camp followers into service clearing roads, putting out fires, and rebuilding bridges.

Alone out of the advisers, Liv was never asked to consult on anything. The bursar was consulted most often. She wore gigantic corrective lenses and carried a small abacus that she was constantly worrying. Or at least Liv thought she was merely nervously fidgeting with the abacus. After a while, as the woman gave a report about a dozen different ways the prince could structure his debts so as to maximize his own take, Liv realized the little woman was doing figures ceaselessly.

Finally, the prince asked one of the advisers to tell him what other business was waiting, and deemed that it could all keep until tomorrow. He dismissed the rest of his advisers and beckoned Liv to join him.

Together they walked upstairs and out onto the great balcony from his room.

“So, Aliviana Danavis, what did you see today?”

“My lord?” She shrugged. “I saw that governing is a lot more complicated than I ever would have imagined.”

“I did more for Garriston today-and more for Tyrea-than the Chromeria has done in sixteen years. Not that everyone will thank me for it. Forced labor to clean up the city won’t be popular, but it’s better than letting the goods rot or be taken away by looters and gangs.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He took out a thin zigarro of tobacco rolled inside a ratweed skin from a pocket in his cloak. He touched it to a finger full of sub-red to light it and inhaled deeply.

She looked at him curiously.

“My transition from flesh to luxin wasn’t perfect,” he said. “I’ve done better than anyone in centuries, but I still made mistakes. Painful mistakes. Of course, starting from a charred husk didn’t make things any easier.”

“What happened to you?” Liv asked.

“Some other time perhaps. I want you to think about the future, Aliviana. I want you to dream.” He looked out over the bay. It was clotted with garbage, the docks littered. He sighed. “This is the city we’ve taken. The jewel of the desert that the Chromeria did its best to destroy.”

“My father was trying to protect it,” Liv said.

“Your father’s a great man, and I have no doubt that’s exactly what he thought he was doing. But your father believed the Chromeria’s lies.”

“I think he was blackmailed,” Liv said, feeling hollow. The Prism she’d so admired had used Liv to blackmail her father into helping him. She didn’t even know how, but it was the only thing she could imagine had brought her father to fight for his sworn enemy.

“I hope that’s true.”

“What?” Liv asked.

“Because if so, it isn’t too late for him, and I’d love to have your father stand at our side. He’s a dangerous man. A good man. Brilliant. We’ll find out. But I’m afraid, Liv, that he’s been listening to their lies for so long that his whole system of understanding has been corrupted. He might see a few weeds on the surface and reject those, but if the soil itself is fouled, how can he see the truth? This is why the young are our hope.”

The sun was going down, and a fresh breeze had kicked up off the Cerulean Sea. The Color Prince took a deep drag on his zigarro and seemed to relish the redder light.

“Liv, I want you to think of a world without the Chromeria. A world where a woman can worship whichever god she sees fit. Where being a drafter isn’t a death sentence with a ten-year wait. A world in which an accident of birth doesn’t put fools on thrones, but where a man’s abilities and drive are all that determines his success. No lords but those whose nature establishes them. No slaves-at all. Slavery is the curse of the Chromeria. In our new world, a woman won’t be despised because she came from Tyrea-no, nor will it be a badge of honor. I’m not fighting to make Tyrea supreme. In our new world, it simply won’t matter. Your hair, your eyes, whatever it is that sets you apart will merely make you interesting. We will be a light to the world. We will open the Everdark Gates that Lucidonius closed and cut passes through the Sharazan Mountains. We will welcome all.

“In every village and every town, magic will be taught, and we’ll find that many, many more people have talents that can be used to better their lives and the lives of those around them. It won’t be in the corrupt hands of governors and satraps. As we learn, I think we’ll find that everyone, everyone, has been kissed by light. Someday everyone will draft. Think what geniuses of magic are out there even today-geniuses who could change the world! But right now, maybe they’re Tyrean, and they can’t afford to go to the Chromeria. They’re Parian, and the deya doesn’t like their family. They’re Ilytian, and they’re mired in superstition about magic being evil. Think of the fields that lie fallow. Think of children starving for the bread that they don’t have because they don’t have green drafters to fertilize the crops. The Chromeria has their blood on its hands-and none of them even realize it! It’s a quiet death, a slow poison. The Chromeria has drained the life from the satrapies one drop of blood at a time. That’s our fight, Aliviana. For a different future. And it won’t be easy. Too many people gain too much from the current corruption for them to give it up easily. And they’ll send the people to die for them. And it breaks my heart. They’ll sacrifice the very people we want to set free. But we’ll stop them. We’ll make sure they can’t do it again, that generations yet unborn receive a better world than the one we have.”

She hesitated. “Everything you’re saying sounds good, but the proof’s in the eating, isn’t it?” Liv said.

He smiled broadly. “Yes! This is what I want from you, Liv. Draft. Right now. Superviolet. And think. And tell me what you’re thinking. You won’t be punished. Regardless.”

She did, soaking up that alien, invisible light and letting it course through her, feeling it peel her away from her emotions to a hyperrationality, an almost disembodied intelligence. “You’re a practical man,” she said, her voice flat. Intonation seemed an unnecessary frill when you were in the grip of superviolet. “Perhaps a romantic, too. An odd combination. But you’ve been accomplishing tasks all day, and I wonder if I’m not merely the last on the list. I can’t tell if this is the prelude to a seduction or if you simply like the admiration of women.” Part of her was appalled at what she’d said-the presumption! But instead of yielding to her blushes, she huddled deeper in the superviolet’s dispassion.

Archly, the prince said, “Rare is the man who won’t swoon over women swooning over him.”

“So I’m trivially correct on the latter.” He enjoyed her attention, her growing awe, but he had barely touched her, even when he had excuses to do so. He didn’t lean toward her as they spoke. He was engaged intellectually but not bodily. “But this is no seduction.”

He didn’t look entirely pleased. “Alas, the fire that took so much else has denied me the simpler pleasures of the flesh. Not that I despise such. But no cavorting like a green for me.” Between the immobilization caused by the burn scars on his face and the immobilization of the luxins he was weaving into his skin, it was difficult to read any but the most overt expressions on his face, but she reminded herself that this didn’t mean he didn’t feel readily or deeply. His eyes swirled freely with colors, but Liv thought they, too, were only good indicators of his emotions when he felt something strongly. It made him something of a cipher.

Superviolet loved ciphers. Cracking ciphers.

“Do you know who I was?” the Color Prince asked.

“No.”

“And I’m not going to tell you. Do you know why?”

“Because you don’t want me to know?” she hazarded.

“No. Because superviolets love digging up secrets. And if I don’t set you to work digging up something that doesn’t matter to me, you might be smart enough to dig up something I don’t want known.”

“Diabolical,” she said appreciatively.

Luxin shot out of him, slamming into her chest. She staggered, lost her grip on superviolet, and found something tight around her neck.

Kicking, Liv realized she’d been lifted off her feet. No, not just off her feet. She was suspended, off the edge of the balcony, held by a fist of luxin around her entire head. She grabbed at the fist, trying to pull herself up, trying to breathe, trying to loosen its grip-panicking, not even realizing that loosening its grip was the last thing she ought to want. If she fell from this height, she’d die. Her head felt hot, all the veins bulging, her eyes feeling like they’d explode.

The Color Prince’s eyes were stark red, glowing like coals. He blinked. Yellow flooded to the fore, and she felt herself swung back onto the balcony, released.

She fell, coughing.

“I… The Chromeria has demonized what we do,” the prince rasped. “Literally. They have made us into actual devils, and I won’t tolerate those who call good evil and evil good. I… reacted badly.”

Liv was shaking, and embarrassed of it. She thought she was going to cry, and was furious with herself for it. She was a Danavis. She was brave and strong and she would not break down like a little girl. She was a woman, seventeen years old. Old enough to have children of her own. She would not break down.

She stood and curtsied, wobbling only a little. “My apologies, my lord. I didn’t mean to offend.”

He looked out over the bay, putting his hands on the rail. He’d lost his zigarro. He lit another. “You needn’t be embarrassed of the trembling. It’s the body’s reaction. I’ve seen the most fearless veterans do the same. Your embarrassment of it makes it look like weakness. Ignore it. It passes.”

Painting a placid expression on her face as if it were the stark lines of kohl, Liv drafted superviolet. It helped. She folded her arms, as if against the evening chill but really to bury their shaking. “So, my lord?”

He cocked his head. “So?”

“So you have a plan for me.”

“Of course I do.”

“And you’re not going to tell me what it is.”

“Such a smart girl. I’m going to assign you a tutor to answer almost every one of your questions.”

“Except for that one?”

He grinned. “There will be other omissions as well.”

“Who is this tutor?”

“You’ll know when you see him. Now go. I have grimmer tasks to accomplish before the light dies.”