The Blinding Knife

Chapter 5

How could a woman make you want to throw her ass into the sea and kiss her breathless at the same time? Karris walked away and Gavin couldn’t help but admire her figure.

Damn woman.

He saw that some of the sailors on deck were appreciating her figure, too. He cleared his throat to get their attention and lifted an eyebrow at them; they quickly found work to do.

“Is this perfectly necessary, Lord Prism?” a voice asked, coming up behind Gavin. It was his new general, the man who’d worked with him sixteen years ago when he’d been Dazen’s most effective general, Corvan Danavis. They’d had to do some clever work to make everyone believe Gavin’s “enemy” would now take orders from him.

“By this, you mean this?” Gavin pointed at the rope ladder up to the crow’s nest.

“Yes.” General Danavis was the kind of man who prayed before a battle, just in case, and then went about his business as if he had absolutely no fear of death. Gavin didn’t think he experienced fear in the way other men did-but he absolutely hated heights.

“Yes,” Gavin said. He climbed up the rope ladder first. As he pulled himself into the observation box, he was struck once again by a thought he had regularly: his whole life was based on magic. He climbed this height fearlessly because he knew that if he fell, he could draft quickly enough to catch himself. Though he might appear fearless, he wasn’t. There was simply hardly ever any danger for him-totally unlike most people. People would see him do incredible things, and think him incredible. And they would be totally misunderstanding.

The sudden stab of fear was so sharp that he thought for a moment someone actually had hit him in the gut. He took a deep breath.

Corvan came up, eyes locked on the crow’s nest, hands in a death grip on each rung. Gavin hated to do this to his friend, but there were some conversations that one simply couldn’t risk having overheard.

Gavin helped him into the box. He let the general catch his breath. At least the safety rails up here were nice and high and stout. Below, the sailors were going about their work. The morning wind was rising, and the first watch was out, checking lines and knots, the captain on the poop with a sextant, making sure of their position.

“I’ve lost blue,” Gavin said. Get it out. Clean it up afterward.

He could tell from the expression on his face that Corvan Danavis had no idea what he was talking about. He stroked the red mustache he was growing back. He’d been known for dangling beads from that mustache, back during the Prisms’ War. “Blue what?”

“I can’t see blue anymore, Corvan. It’s a sunny morning, I’m staring at the sky and the Cerulean Sea-and I can’t see blue. I’m dying, and I need your help deciding what I should do.”

Corvan was one of the smartest men Gavin knew, but he looked lost. “Lord Prism, such a thing isn’t-wait, tell me one piece at a time. Did this happen during your fight with the sea demon?”

“No.” Gavin looked over the waves. The rocking of the ship was soothing, perfectly complemented by the harmonious blues of sky and sea. He could remember the color so clearly he could swear he almost saw it. He was a superchromat, one who could differentiate colors much more finely than other men. He knew blue from its lightest to its darkest tones, from its violet hues to its greenest ones, blue of every saturation, blue of every mixture.

“After the battle,” Gavin said. “When we sailed away with all the refugees. I woke the next day and I didn’t even notice for a while. It’s like looking at a friend’s face and realizing you don’t know her name, Corvan. Blue’s there; it’s close. It’s like the color is on the tip of my eyes. If I don’t concentrate, I don’t even notice it, except that the world seems washed out, flat. But if I concentrate as hard as I can, I can see gray where the blue should be. Exactly the right tone and saturation and brightness, but… gray.”

Corvan was silent for a long minute, red-haloed eyes squinting. “The timing isn’t right,” he said. “Prisms are supposed to last some multiple of seven years. You should have five years left.”

“I don’t think what’s happening to me is normal. I was never ordained the Prism. Maybe this is what happens when a natural polychrome doesn’t go through the Spectrum’s ceremony.”

“I don’t know that that’s quite-”

“Have you ever heard of any Prism going blind, Corvan? Ever?” The last Prism before Gavin-the real Gavin-had been Alexander Spreading Oak. He’d been a weak Prism, hid in his apartments mostly, had likely been a poppy addict. The matriarch Eirene Malargos had been before him. She’d lasted fourteen years. Gavin had only the barest recollection of her from the Sun Day rituals when he was a young boy.

“Gavin, most Prisms don’t last sixteen years. Maybe the Spectrum’s ceremony would have made you die earlier. If you’d died after seven years or fourteen, you’d never have experienced this. We can’t know.”

That was one problem with being a fraud. You can’t elicit information about something that’s terribly secret that you should already know. The real Gavin had been initiated as Prism-elect when he was thirteen years old. He had sworn never to speak of it, not even to once-best-friend and brother Dazen.

It was one oath that, so far as Gavin could tell, each member of the Spectrum had honored. Because in the sixteen years he’d been impersonating his brother, no one had said a word about it. Unless, of course, they had made sidelong references to it-which he never picked up, and thus didn’t respond to, and thus let them know that he valued the secrecy of the ceremony highly and they should, too.

In other words, he was caught in a trap of his own devising. Again.

“Corvan, I don’t know what’s happening. I may wake up tomorrow and not be able to draft green, and the next day and not be able to draft yellow. Or maybe I’ve just lost blue and that’s all, but I have lost blue. Best-case scenario, if I manage to stay away from the Chromeria and am absent during every blue ritual, I’ve got one year left-until next Sun Day. There’s no way I could maintain a fraud through the ceremonies, or skip them. If I can’t draft blue by then, I’m dead.”

Gavin could see Corvan realizing all the consequences. His friend expelled a breath. “Huh. Just when everything was going so well.” He chuckled. “We’ve got fifty thousand refugees that no one is going to want; we’re running low on food; the Color Prince has just had a major victory and will now doubtless gather thousands more heretics to his banners; and now we’re losing our greatest asset.”

“I’m not dead yet,” Gavin said. He grinned.

Corvan grinned ruefully back, but he looked sick. “Don’t worry, Lord Prism, I’m the last man who would count you out.” Gavin knew it was true, too. Corvan had accepted disgrace and exile to make Dazen’s defeat look credible. He’d spent the last sixteen years in a backwater village, poor, unknown, quietly keeping an eye on the real Gavin’s bastard, Kip.

Another problem.

Corvan looked down, blanched at the height, and gripped the rail tightly again. “What are you going to do?”

“The more time I spend with drafters, the more likely it is that someone will notice something’s wrong. And if I’m at the Chromeria too long, the White will ask me to balance. If blue goes under red, I might not even be able to tell, much less balance it out. They’ll remove me.”

“So…”

“So I’m going to go to Azulay to see the Nuqaba,” Gavin said.

“Well, that’s one way of keeping Ironfist from accompanying you, but why do you want to see her?”

“Because in addition to their capital having the largest library in the world-where I can study without the entire Spectrum knowing what I’ve looked at within an hour-the Parians also keep oral histories, including many that are secret and some that are doubtless heretical.”

“What are you looking for?”

“If I’ve lost control of blue, Corvan, that means blue is out of control.”

Corvan looked momentarily confused, then aghast. “You can’t be serious. I’ve never read a serious scholar who thought the bane were anything other than bogeymen the Chromeria invented to justify the actions of some of the early zealots and the luxors.”

The bane. Corvan used the old Ptarsu term correctly. The word could be singular or plural. It had probably meant temple or holy place, but Lucidonius’s Parians had believed they were abominations. They’d acquired the word itself as they’d acquired the world.

“And if they’re wrong?”

Corvan was quiet for a long time. Then he said, “So you’re going to show up on the Nuqaba’s doorstep and say, ‘As the head of your faith, please show me your heretical texts and tell me the stories which I of all people am most likely to find deserving of death,’ and expect them to do it? I guess it qualifies as a plan. Not a good one, mind you.”

“I can be awfully charming,” Gavin said.

Corvan smiled, but turned away. “You know,” he said, “what you did yesterday with the sea demon was… astounding. What you did in Garriston was astounding, and not just the building of Brightwater Wall. Gavin, these people will follow you to the ends of the earth. They will spread word of what you’ve done to anyone they meet. If it came down to a fight between you and the Spectrum…”

“The Spectrum already has more malleable candidates lined up to be the next Prism, Corvan. If I defy them now, I’ll be in as bad of a spot as Dazen was seventeen years ago. I won’t put the world through that again. The people can love me, but if all their leaders unite against me, I’ll win nothing except for death for my friends and allies. I’ve done that once.”

“So, what? You’re just going to leave us? What are you going to do about Kip? He’s a tough kid, but he’s damaged and I think you’re the only thing he’s holding on to. If he finds out you’re not who you say you are, he could shatter. There’s no telling what he’d turn into. Don’t do that to your soul, Gavin. Don’t do that to the world. The last thing the Seven Satrapies need is another young polychrome Guile, mad with rage and grief. And what are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to put all these people?”

“Corvan, Corvan, Corvan. I’ve got a plan.” Sort of.

“Somehow, my friend, I was afraid of that.” The crow’s nest swayed hard as the ship caught a rogue wave, and Corvan looked down at the deck far below, swallowing. “I don’t suppose it includes an easy way for me to get down?”