Andross played a Pagan Priest, and Kip had to respond with a Lightguard—boy did that stick in his craw, using those bastards. “Odd that those cards don’t come with a betrayal mechanic,” Kip said. “Limitations of the game, I guess.”
“I’ve found them quite loyal where they should be.”
“Really? Is Aram still sucking at Zymun’s teat?” Kip asked.
“Oh, yes,” Andross said. “He much preferred to report to me secretly on what Zymun is doing than be executed for his little indiscretion.”
‘His little indiscretion’? Setting the Lightguard on Kip and murdering Goss, rather than letting them escape, was an indiscretion?
“If I punch you in the face, do I lose automatically?” Kip asked.
Andross merely considered him with his dead, shark’s eyes.
“Aram’s men murdered a friend of mine,” Kip said. “One of the Lightguards demanded to see me, and Goss said he was me. They shot him. No other words spoken. So I know all this is a game to you, but you can go fuck yourself.”
“You want justice for that? Fine. These are small matters for men such as us. Tell you what: as a gesture of goodwill, I’ll execute the man who pulled the trigger, and Aram too. Done and done. The triggerman immediately. Aram’s an officer too difficult to replace on the eve of a battle, but if he lives through the battle, he’ll be hanged next week.”
Orholam’s balls, but Andross Guile was cold.
“I don’t know what my problem is,” Kip said. “I’ve spent a lot of time with you now. You’ve hit me, you’ve stolen things from me, you’ve cheated me, you’ve threatened to enslave my friend, your people have tried to murder me several times—”
“Only once on my orders,” Andross said, “but do go on.”
“And yet I still keep trying to engage you as if you had a soul. Why is that? I’m not usually a stupid man. When I spent a little time with Zymun, I knew instantly that he was all serpent. He’s one of those people incapable of the higher human emotions. He’s defective. Born crippled, if you will. Soulless. It’s not really his fault, is it? He could never be much better than he is. He sees what he wants, and he can’t help but try to take it. But you . . . you don’t have that excuse. If you’re a monster, you made yourself monstrous. You had a choice. More than one, I’d bet. And you chose darkness every time. I should hate you to the depths of my soul, and yet I don’t. I actually like you, and I’m stuck here wondering, is that because you still have that preternatural Guile charm that I really wish I’d inherited, or is it because somehow you’re my blind spot, or is it because intuitively, beyond all rationale, I see some spark of life deep in you? You should have been more than a great man; you should have been a good man.”
“Your turn.”
They played the next few turns in silence.
Andross was playing slowly. It wasn’t like him. It was, however, a good strategy when your deck is significantly stronger—
There was a sharp rap on the wall. Grinwoody announcing someone.
And then Kip saw that Andross really was running the game as a simulation of the battle to come. The old man wouldn’t attack until noon, when he could play a bane, just as the White King wasn’t attacking until Sun Day.
Andross really thought he was going to get some insight about the battle from this.
“High Lord, there’s someone here to see you,” Grinwoody said.
Andross’s lip curled. “Grinwoody, I didn’t think that you could possibly fail to understand what this game means. Or what ‘I’m not to be disturbed’ means.”
“It’s Satrap Corvan Danavis, my lord.”
“What?! How did he get here so fast?”
“Upon your command that you not be disturbed, I turned away the messenger bringing news his ships had been spotted, and also the messenger who announced Danavis was coming directly here. You’ve been cloistered for quite some time.”
“Grinwoody.” There was a warning in Andross’s tone.
“My apologies, my lord,” Grinwoody said. “I’ll show him in immediately.”
Andross bundled his cards back together, squared the edges, and laid them facedown on the table. He put his teacup on them, and drew on his zigarro while Kip followed his lead, each watching the other closely to make sure neither took advantage of the disruption to cheat. Then they both rose and moved away from the table, each giving it a wide berth, and for the same reason.
“Kip!” Corvan cried out when he saw him.
Kip’s heart warmed instantly. Kip knew a lot of people who’d changed monumentally in the last two or three years, but Corvan was almost exactly the same—except he’d grown out his mustache and hung little gold beads into it, as he’d worn it long years ago before he’d moved to Rekton. In a world of friends and foes as shifting as the mists, he was solid. Here was a man who was simply himself, whose idea of hiding his identity had been moving away and shaving off his famed mustache, without even changing his name. His eyes held the same old mix of sternness and contentment, with an undertone of abiding grief, but there were no regrets there. He looked strong.
They embraced, and Kip felt like a child again for half a moment. Except now he was taller than his old guardian.
“I hear those books you kept pilfering from my shelves have done you some good,” Corvan said as he released Kip. “Though I’ve not heard a tactician’s account of the Battle of Dúnbheo yet. Everything I hear is all giant bears and last-second traps and magic.”
“I’ll be happy to fill you in,” Kip said, letting the man turn to the promachos.
“Satrap Danavis,” Andross said respectfully. “Welcome to the Chromeria. We are so sorry to hear about your bereavement.”
“I received your funerary gifts. They helped ease my burdens, Pro-machos. Thank you.”
Andross gestured that it was nothing.
“Now I feel like an asshole for not sending anything,” Kip said. “I’m sorry, sir. I only found out you’d even remarried at the same time I heard of your wife’s passing—yesterday. I’m so sorry.”
“They were the best days of my life,” Corvan said. “And we knew they would be short. She told me all along, though she couldn’t guess the details until recently. An assassin from the Order of the Broken Eye, we both believe.”
“From the Order?!” Kip demanded, irate.
“A Seer is most dangerous to the most dangerous people,” Corvan said.
“Grandfather, you didn’t hire them for that, did you?” Kip asked.
The air suddenly tingled as if they were all waiting for a bolt to strike and its thunderhead to blow out all the windows.
“No,” Andross said coolly.
“Oh, good,” Kip said. “He had to be thinking it, and I thought it would be good for him to see your face when I asked. I thought he might be too polite to ask.”
“On the matter of my wife, I wouldn’t let etiquette—or anything—get in the way of my vengeance,” Corvan said.
“I only ask,” Kip said, “since you’ve had such a good working relationship with the Order in the past.”