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?”
Chapter 6
Ironfist grimaced at the missive in his hand. Usually, that expression, from him, toward Gavin, would be a quick twitch, quickly smoothed away. This time, his face twisted as if he were eating steak smoked in poisonwood. “You’re having me deliver orders. To the White,” Ironfist said.
Gavin had summoned the big bodyguard to his stateroom after trying several rooms to see which suited his purposes best. “Regarding my son. Yes.” As Prism, Gavin didn’t have any authority over the White, but she had to be careful not to offend him. Both of them had to choose their battles with each other. He thought this was one she wouldn’t choose.
“You want Kip made a Blackguard.” Ironfist kept his voice flat. He was the Blackguard’s commander. Technically, he alone was supposed to decide who was invited to try to join. “Lord Prism, I’m struggling to find where to start explaining how wrong and destructive that would be.”
It was a sunny day out, but the gleaming dark woods of the stateroom soaked up light, made Gavin have to concentrate to see the commander’s expressions. “I hope you know, Commander, that I have supreme respect for you.”
Slight eyebrow twitch. Disbelief. It actually was true, but Gavin supposed he hadn’t given Ironfist many reasons to believe that.
Gavin continued, “But we find ourselves in a situation that requires quick action. Refugees. Aggrieved satraps. A city lost. Rebellion. Ring a bell?”