The Blinding Knife (87 page)

The young Blackguard said nothing. His face showed nothing.

Gavin got on his sea chariot. He wanted to give more orders and advice to Commander Ironfist, but the man knew what he was doing. He would do the maximum damage with the minimum loss of life possible. He didn’t need Gavin to tell him how to do that. So Gavin left.

He sped across the seas, which today were a great deal calmer than they had been yesterday. That fact alone would probably save more of the Blackguards than Nerra’s and Gavin’s invention.

For Gavin, it didn’t mean much except that his trip was somewhat smoother and faster than it would have been.

The sun was past its zenith when Gavin turned the skimmer into the bay at Seers Island. He could see that his seawall was still in excellent order, and there were dozens of fishing dories out in the bay. People waved at him, greeting him like a returning hero. There was a town on the shore now, the jungle had been pushed back, and alongside temporary shacks, more permanent buildings were under construction. There were even farms.

The change was profound. Gavin wasn’t sure why he was surprised, but he was. He hadn’t even been gone very long, but he’d helped establish the fundamentals. They’d warehoused the tens of thousands of yellow bricks he’d made, and they’d obviously been putting them to good use. Fifty thousand people with purpose, good leadership, and all the tools they needed could do a lot of work in a short time. What didn’t surprise him was that the Third Eye was waiting for him on the beach.

Being a Seer must be terribly handy.

Which was why he was here. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it sooner. He was going into battle and he’d spent—perhaps wasted was more accurate—several days scouting out their positions. While he knew a Seer. A True Seer who didn’t couch what she saw in mystical jargon and vague pronouncements.

Gavin beached the skimmer and jumped lightly onto the sand. The Third Eye was dressed in a simple white dress, belted with a golden sash. She’d once said that she was usually modest. It was, he’d come to see, actually true. She held a hand out, and Gavin kissed it. She smiled, delighted, and Gavin thought there was something softer about her this time.

“My apologies about last time,” she said.

“My lady?”

“If I spoiled your marriage for you, the last time you washed up on my beach. I try to not ruin futures for people, but I was under some stress. I make mistakes.”

Gavin looked at her radiant face and was glad she had reminded him he was a married man. He was terribly in love with Karris, but this woman tugged at him on several layers beneath the rational. “Me, too,” he said. He knuckled his forehead. “Just exactly how much do you…”

“Hold on, Corvan is right down on the pier. I think he’s been so busy he may not have seen you come in.”

She offered her arm and he took it, escorting her through the crowds. The people noticed, and they stared, and many of them bobbed their heads to both of them, but Gavin knew this kind of deference. It was the kind of respect men on campaign give to their general. The protocol peeled back to its bare, necessary layers. These people were hard at work, and they had worked alongside the Third Eye for months. They adored and respected her, maybe loved her, but they had work to do.

And she had no bodyguards now. That spoke either to an unprecedented level of peace here or perhaps to her prescience. Hard to kill a Seer, one would guess.

They walked together out to the pier, where Corvan Danavis was speaking to three men who were gesturing to what appeared to be plans for a shipyard.

He turned and looked shocked. He ran—literally ran—over to Gavin and embraced him. Gavin loved him for that. He embraced his one true friend hard, and then released him. “Corvan, you old dog, you look well.”

Corvan was growing out his mustache again, though it wasn’t yet long enough to dangle beads in. He looked ten years younger. “Do you know how hard it is to negotiate with people who can see the
future, Lord Prism? I can’t believe you did this to me. But yes, I suppose that working twenty hours a day agrees with me. Or perhaps it’s the company I get to keep during the other four.” He grinned.

Gavin had no idea what he was talking about. Then he saw the ring on Corvan’s finger a moment before the man stepped over to the Third Eye and kissed her, picked her up, and spun her in a quick circle.

Gavin laughed. “No disaster?” he asked the Third Eye.

She smiled mischievously. “It was… a political necessity,” she said with mock gravity, teasing Corvan.

“A duty. A burden,” Corvan said gravely.

Gavin couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it. Of course it probably
had
been a political necessity. Corvan the leader of the invaders; the Third Eye not quite the leader but the most respected among the island’s inhabitants. Both single, both desperately needing to bind their people together. It
had
been a duty. But sometimes fate is kind, and that which is your duty is also exactly what you were made for.

It also would have made things incredibly awkward if Gavin had bedded the woman his best friend ended up marrying. A disaster.

“Are you going to tell him?” the Third Eye asked.

“Tell him?”

“Men!” she said. “You went to the Spectrum and…”

“You know?” Gavin asked. “Oh, of course. Orholam, that’s unnerving. You haven’t told him?”

“I hate spoiling the future. Besides, you’re the one who paid the price for it. It’s only right you should get to tell him.”

“Tell me what?” Corvan asked.

“You’re a full satrap, High Lord Danavis,” Gavin said.

“I’m a—What? What?” Corvan said.

“Full satrap, full responsibilities, full privileges. You get to name your own Color. A small flotilla of ships carrying supplies and diplomats is already on its way here.”

“Three weeks out,” the Third Eye said, “and bringing along more than a few problems, along with their lifesaving goods and medicines.”

“You knew about this?” Corvan asked.

“You didn’t think I’d marry some mere washed-up general, do you?” the Third Eye asked.

Gavin could tell it was an inside joke. Corvan smiled fondly and shook his head. “A satrap? You said it would be honorary at best. That getting votes would be the work of future generations.”

“Meh.” Gavin shrugged. “They stabbed me in the back. I replied in kind. By the way, you voted for war.”

“Did I have good reason?”

“Mmm.”

“Color Prince?”

“None other.”

“You left me here, you know. Abandoned me. Do you know how hard it is to be married to a woman who knows everything?”

“Almost as hard as it is to be married to a man who exaggerates,” the Third Eye said.

They were deeply in love. Smitten. At their age. Sad.

“I hear you finally came to your senses,” Corvan said to Gavin.

“She told you about Karris?” Gavin asked.

“Orholam is kind,” Corvan said.

Orholam? I thought you barely believed in him. “Corvan, I’d love to spend the next six months here, but I need to speak with your wife. The war’s moving on, and I need to leave within two hours to make it back before I run out of light.”

They went to a tavern nearby and sat outside—“Absolute necessity for civilization,” Corvan had said when Gavin commented sardonically—and took seats in the back. Gavin filled them in on everything that had happened. Everything, from destroying the blue island to throwing that girl off the balcony. He was glad to see that the Third Eye hadn’t known all of it.

Then he asked her, “Can we save Ru?”

“The real question is if we can save the Seven Satrapies.”

“Can we save Ru?” he insisted.

“One time in a thousand,” she said. “Your father would have to think that he was the brilliant mind coming up with half a dozen strategies that you simply aren’t in a good place to feed to him.” She touched Gavin’s hand, and the yellow luxin eye tattooed into her forehead glowed. She took a deep breath, continued to hold his hand, and the glow brightened, brightened until it was blinding.

She threw Gavin’s hand away from her like it was a serpent. She stood abruptly and went out. Gavin stood, bewildered, but Corvan was faster. “Stay,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”

He was gone for five minutes. Gavin tried some of the ale that a very nervous woman handed him. It was surprisingly good. If he hadn’t known that the Third Eye was the real thing, he would have
been suspicious. The skeptic in him was stirring even now. This seemed perfectly orchestrated to paralyze or terrorize him.

The Third Eye came back in unsteadily. She avoided looking Gavin in the eye as she sat across from him.

“You want to know the disposition of forces at Ru. I can tell you that.”

“Are you trying to scare the hell out of me?” Gavin asked.

“Gavin, listen to your mother.”

“Now that,
that
is the kind of thing I expect from a charlatan,” Gavin said. “I thought you weren’t big on parlor tricks.”

“You remember Koios White Oak?”

“I remember seeing a wall fall on him sixteen years ago.”

“He’s the Color Prince.”

“I saw a
wall
fall on him. A burning wall.”

“He’s the Color Prince.”

“I saw a wall—”

“I’m not the moron in this conversation, Guile. Please don’t speak to me as if I am. How many times have you escaped certain death? You think your enemies might never have the same good fortune?”

Gavin’s mouth went suddenly dry. “What—but I—does Karris know this?” Koios. That night when Karris had wept about her dead brothers, she’d said his name. She’d been trying to work up the nerve to tell him. But even telling him would have felt like betraying her brother.

“Have you told Karris all your secrets?”

Fair question. He’d told her most of them, but no, not all.

“You’re wasting time,” the Third Eye said. She was suddenly hard and cold, like it was all she could do to get herself through this. “You need to go back to the Chromeria and get Karris.”

“She’s injured.”

“Stop interrupting. She’ll be well enough to fight. The men your father sent to beat her were very careful, very professional. They were told to inflict pain, not injury.”

“It
was
my father? That piece of—”

“That part isn’t important right now. If you don’t get her… just get her.”

“Tell me,” Gavin demanded.

“Telling you
changes
things,” she said tensely. Her golden eye was glowing.

“Tell me!”

“If you don’t get her, you’ll die. A musket ball tomorrow or a green wight the next day. If you do… the old gods waken, Gavin.”

“The old gods waken?! That’s all you tell me?”

“You’ve lost green. You know what happens. This battle to save Ru, it’s noble, but it’s the wrong battle. You already know that.”

“There’s a green bane, like the blue?”

“You can’t stop them all, Gavin. It’s impossible.”

“Where is it?” he insisted.

“If I tell you, you’ll be in the wrong place.”

“Tell me.”

“If I tell you, you’ll die, you damned fool,” she said, temper flaring. “Ask the right questions!”

“Am I going to—” He balled his fists. “What do I need to do?”

“Mercy isn’t weakness, and love carries a heavy price.”

“I think I’m more the kind of a man who—”

“If you don’t figure out exactly what kind of man you are, there’s no hope for you at all.”

“If you were going for ominous, that was pretty good.”

“I do omens for a living. You want better? Then go now and bed your wife. Bruised and broken as you are, it may be your last chance.”

“Now that,
that
was ominous.” Gavin stood with a bravado he didn’t feel. He’d learned things, but not the way he’d wanted to.

“Gavin,” the Third Eye said, “you came to ask where their forces are. They’ve taken the fort on Ruic Head, though they haven’t put up their own flag. They hope to sink your fleet at the neck. And Ru has several hundred traitors already in the city, including the mercenaries the Atashians hired to protect them. The prince’s men have been hard at work.”

Gavin hesitated. “How long until I lose the rest of my colors?”

“That depends on what kind of man you are.”

“What would you guess?” Gavin asked, irritated.

“If you’re as good of a man as I think you are, you don’t have as much time left as you think you do.” Her eyes were full of compassion—except for that pitiless third eye, which saw only truth.

Gavin walked out the door, and saw Corvan. The man had been weeping, but had dried his eyes and was trying to pretend he hadn’t been.

Orholam’s great hairies, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

The men embraced. Said nothing. Walked together down to the beach. The Third Eye followed them. People had gathered, realizing who Gavin was. They watched from a distance. They knelt. It was like they didn’t know how to tell Gavin what he meant to them. It was just as well, because he didn’t know how to take it. He waved to them, nodded.