The Blinding Knife

Chapter 64

Kip was soaked to the skin. The cold was an invading army, crossing every border of his skin, laying waste. Maybe it had invaded his brain first, making him sluggish, stupid. His fists were the only points of warmth on his whole body, those fired by pain. He’d ripped open the scars on his left hand. Didn’t remember how.

He felt something wash down onto his cheek from the rain, brushed it away. Looked at it in his hand. What the A chill deeper than the cold rain rushing down his spine. Orholam have mercy. It was a piece of Niah’s brain, washed clean by the rain, gray and blue. It had been stuck to his face since her head had been blown apart. Kip convulsed, flung it away.

He had to get out of here. First, he wrapped the cloaks around his body. Without whatever magic had animated them before, they now seemed like very pale, worn cloaks. Nothing special. The gold chokers dangled quite naturally inside the cloak, as if they were often hidden from sight that way. Kip pulled the hood up. The woman’s cloak was too small to fit him comfortably, but he made it work. They were very thin, almost silky, and not fully waterproof, but they were better than nothing. Kip didn’t even open the box of cards-not in this rain.

Last, he picked up the knife. He hadn’t put it in its sheath, just blandly, blindly carried both when he’d picked up Janus Borig and all the other stuff he’d pulled out of the burning house like a looter. But there was something off. He swore the sheath was too short for the blade. No, it couldn’t be.

He sheathed the blade, and as he pushed it home, lightning flashed, illuminating the entire alley, blinding him momentarily. Blinking, he stared at the sheathed blade. The sheath fit perfectly. Still, he swore it looked longer and wider than it had been before.

“Fire! Fire!”

Someone went running past Kip’s alley, and suddenly he was starkly aware that he was standing over the body of an old woman who’d been stabbed to death-with a knife in his hand, in an area that was going to be swarming with people soon.

And so it was. Kip took off, and saw dozens, hundreds of people come out into the streets. “Lightning strike! Fire!” people shouted, pounding on the doors of their neighbors.

In a city, fire was everyone’s problem, even in a storm. The storm was a blessing, of course, the rains helping the crowds extinguish the fires, but everyone turned out to battle the blaze lest it spread.

Kip got out of the neighborhood, made his way back toward the great bridge, the Lily’s Stem, but didn’t cross. He’d gone to seek Janus Borig to ask her where to hide a great treasure: now he had four treasures.

What the hell was he doing with four treasures?

The more relevant question was what the hell was he going to do with four treasures?

He stood for a minute in the rain, probably wealthy beyond the dreams of satrapahs and queens, and he couldn’t afford a dry place to lay his head.

Ironfist. If Kip could get to him.

He walked across the bridge, tucking the dagger in his belt and covering it up, but making sure he could reach it quickly if he needed to.

There was no one outside except a pair of guards standing in their sentry boxes to avoid the rain, and they didn’t look interested, though Kip’s imagination made him paranoid. He made it to the lift without incident.

Kip had been a child for too long. He’d come to the Chromeria, and as soon as Andross Guile had found out about him, an assassin had tried to throw him off the tower. By playing the black cards, Kip must have revealed that Janus Borig had helped him defeat Andross Guile in a game. And she’d been murdered almost immediately.

With the amount of time that Kip had spent with the old man, it was tempting to humanize him, to believe that Andross might feel something for Kip. It wasn’t true. There were monsters in the world, and Andross Guile was one of them.

Kip got off the elevator a few levels short of the top of the Prism’s Tower. The Blackguards made their barracks here.

The first man he saw was a skinny Ilytian with a burn scar across one cheek, sitting on his bed, reading. A few other men were dicing a ways back in a common area, others were sharing rumors about assassinations in Abornea from comfortable chairs. “This area is for Blackguards only, boy,” the man said.

“I need to see Ironfist,” Kip said. “I’m Kip, Gavin’s bastard. It’s an emergency. I may be in danger. And it’s secret.”

Blackguards didn’t get to be Blackguards by being indecisive. The man stood. “No one will harm you here. I’ll take you to the commander’s quarters. He’s out on rounds right now-he always works longer than any of us-but he’s usually back by an hour after midnight.”

An hour after midnight? Of course. Kip hadn’t realized that his own midnight training sessions with Ironfist were actually part of the man’s normal workday-he worked from dawn until an hour after midnight. Every day.

The Blackguard walked Kip past the others, who looked askance but didn’t object, and took Kip to a small room. He opened the door, which wasn’t locked.

“No one except the commander will get in while any of us live.” He hesitated, then said, “Do please note that if you steal anything from this room, the consequences will be dire.”

“Yes, yes, thank you. Of course,” Kip said.

He felt a huge wave of relief, quickly replaced by exhaustion and then discomfort as he looked around Ironfist’s room.

For some reason, it felt oddly intimate to be here. Kip had never really imagined the huge Blackguard commander as a person who had a room. Ridiculous thought, of course. Where’d you figure he sleeps, Kip?

The room fit the man: tidy, not large despite his exalted position, finely carved lean black oak chairs with no cushions, the narrow bed covered with a green-and-black-checkered blanket, a rack of many fine weapons on one wall and one gorgeous painting opposite the bed. It was of a young woman, hair knotted and piled atop her head, dark eyes glimmering with orange halos, beautiful, chin lifted, hint of a playful twist to her lips. Kip didn’t know anything about painting, but it was clear even to his untrained eye that this was exquisite.

A knock on the door interrupted his reverie. He opened it. The solemn Blackguard handed him a towel. “He lets guests sit in that chair,” the man said, pointing. “You can pull it by the fire. Is it the kind of emergency where we need to send runners for him, or can you wait?”

“Wait. Waiting is fine,” Kip said. “Thank you.”

The door closed with a click, and Kip’s heart went out of him. He wanted to be a Blackguard so much he thought he’d die if he didn’t make it. Quiet and calm in the face of an emergency, decisive in the face of uncertainty, dangerous, masterful, confident.

He toweled off as well as he could, then stretched the two cloaks out to dry and sat in the chair by the fire.

Standing there in the warmth of the fire, Kip was struck by a thought. He drafted sub-red directly from the fire and pulled it through his skin. He was warm instantly. He could, in fact, dry his clothes-though not too quickly or he’d burn himself. Hell, if he weren’t such a moron, he could have gone back into the building when it was on fire. He could have drafted the heat away from himself-and then what? Recovered a few treasures and still been inside the building when it exploded? Maybe he could have drafted shields around the kegs of black powder. If he’d been thinking.

He hadn’t even thought to draft himself an umbrella on his way back to the Chromeria to stay dry. It simply hadn’t occurred to him. He just wasn’t mentally fast enough for this. A failure, stupid, his mother would say.

But then, he’d been not a drafter for his whole life, and only a drafter for a couple months. Nothing was instinctive yet. He pushed the thought, the worries, his mother’s lies, away.

The card box smelled of cherry cavendish, tobacco like fruit leather. Janus Borig had hidden her most valuable cards in her tobacco. And it had worked. Funny old coot.

Kip had liked her.

His quick grin faded. Orholam. She was dead. Murdered.

By Andross Guile. A soul-deep loathing settled in him. He stood. Go right to the gut, Kip. See if the man only has the balls to hire murderers. Kip put the card box on the table. Don’t stop moving, Kip. Weakness and fear beckoned. He tossed his knife on the bed. It was safer here than anywhere.

He went out the door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he told the skinny Ilytian standing guard by his door. He wanted to tell the man to guard that room with his life, but anything Kip said like that would sound melodramatic, hysterical. Besides, who was going to break into the commander of the Blackguard’s room?

Kip hadn’t seen or heard any signal, but before he got to the lift, Samite fell in place beside him. She was still buckling her ataghan belt.

“You’re not trying to stop me?” Kip asked as they got on the lift.

“Not a Blackguard’s place to stop her charges from making mistakes.” Though her tone was light, Samite didn’t grin.

Kip set his jaw, hunkered into himself. He thought about Janus Borig. I am not going to be afraid. She deserves better. When they arrived, he knocked firmly on Andross Guile’s door. The door opened after a few moments, and Grinwoody appeared. With the open door, Kip heard harp music float out.

“I need to speak with him,” Kip said.

“The High Luxlord is occupied.”

“Now, Grinwoody.”

The Ilytian’s unpleasant expression turned angry at Kip using his real name.

“Now, Wormwood!” Kip said.

Grinwoody turned his back and closed the door. Kip stuck his foot in the crack. The man looked at him, furious.

“Try to throw me out, you simpering worm,” Kip said. “Try.”

Grinwoody looked from Kip to Samite. “The young master will keep the drapes closed,” he said. Then he disappeared into the darkness of the spider’s hole.

“You see superviolet?” Kip asked Samite.

“No.” Her tone carried a slight accusation: If you’d needed someone who could see superviolet, you could have said so, knucklehead.

“My fault. Wait out here. If they kill me, you’ll know who did it.” Drafting his own superviolet torch, Kip went inside, not waiting for permission.

He almost collided with Andross Guile.

“You are not to come here without permission!” Andross shouted. He swung a slap at Kip. Kip dodged.

“You fucking murderer!” Kip shouted back in his face.

The harpist, a young woman sitting in the chair Kip usually occupied, stopped playing, looking terrified in the darkness.

“What?” Andross demanded.

“You killed Janus Borig, you fucking coward!”

There was a swift motion behind Kip. He hadn’t even noticed Grinwoody slipping around him, and in an instant both of Kip’s arms were knocked down, twisted, and put in elbow locks. Kip lost the superviolet and was plunged into blindness. He was driven to his knees.

“Janus Borig? How do you know her?” Andross demanded.

“You killed her! I just came from her house!” Kip was suddenly jagged, powerless, a furious child. Damn me, a furious child.

“Why would I kill Janus Borig?” Andross Guile asked.

“She gave me the black cards I used to beat you!”

“You think I’d kill a demiurge over a card game? Where was she? She was here? On the Jaspers?”

“Don’t lie to me! You knew she was here. You’ve had me followed everywhere I go.”

“I have? And every bad thing that happens in the world is my doing? What a simple world you live in,” Andross Guile said. “She was killed? You’re certain of this.”

Kip realized suddenly that he was on the verge of making a tremendous mistake. Anything he said could give Andross Guile information he hadn’t had before. Even coming here did that. “Why should I believe you didn’t kill her?” he said.

“Because she did me two great favors a long time ago,” Andross said. “We were friends, for a time. She had a history of that, you know. Befriending people, using them for her art, and then disappearing. She was doubtless using you, too.”

No, she hadn’t been doing that. Not to Kip. Lies. “What favors?”

“She was making new Nine Kings cards. Did she not-No, of course she wouldn’t have told a child. She made my card first.”

“So?”

“You’ve never seen the true cards, have you? The cards let a drafter live the memories of those they depict-but only up to the moment when the cards were drawn. Janus Borig enshrined me as important enough to deserve a card, and did it without threatening me. At best, an enemy could learn my thoughts and plans as of what, twenty-eight years ago? I am the only important person alive to whom those new cards are not a threat.”

Which meant he would want Janus Borig to finish as many of her other cards as possible. Of course he would do anything to get his hands on the final product, but he wouldn’t kill her before she finished.

“And the second favor she did you?” Kip asked. He was deflating, though, defeated already.

“You tell me what happened, and I’ll tell you.”

Kip slumped, and Grinwoody released him. “I went to her home tonight-”

“Where?”

“On Big Jasper.”

“Where?”

Kip told him. “When I got there, the house was on fire. The whole neighborhood was trying to put it out before it spread. They thought it was a lightning strike, but they found her a couple streets over, with no cloak, and stab wounds all over her. I could barely even recognize her.” If Kip had gotten there late, even if Janus Borig had taken something out of the house, there was no way to tell who might have found her first, who might have stolen what she had.

“Did you see anyone suspicious?” Andross asked.

“You know what?” Kip said. “Forget it. I’m not trading with you. You’re better at this game. I don’t need to play.”

Kip drafted a superviolet torch and saw that Samite was standing behind Grinwoody, the point of a knife a finger’s breadth from the back of his neck. In the utter darkness. She was that good.

“She gave me my card, Kip,” Andross Guile said. “So I could see exactly what was in it. She could make copies, of course, but they’re always weaker. She feared me. I know that. But I had no reason to hurt her.”

And Andross Guile never did anything without a reason.