Kip stepped forward and opened Tisis’s chest. Inside was a red dress, high-necked and long-sleeved and heavy and adorned with the Mighty’s sigil as well. “Armored?” Kip asked.
“As much as possible without being obvious. I figured that her duties wouldn’t be martial, but that she may well not stay away from harm, either. The Guile women seem to hold in common a lack of an aversion to danger.”
“This is Felia’s dress, isn’t it?” Kip asked. Andross had merely had a tailor add the Mighty’s sigil to it.
Andross pursed his lips. “I hate how you do that.”
“So, do I get anything?” Kip said flippantly.
“Oh yes,” Andross said, his eyes twinkling. “I spent a long time pondering if I should give you armor so fine you couldn’t turn it down but that would make you look like a raging asshole.”
“Nice,” Kip said. Though I kind of do that on my own.
“But I figured you already do that on your own.”
I hate how he does that.
Andross gestured and a slave brought out another box. In it was armor to match the Mighty, albeit with the colors reversed, the armor entirely white, with the figure of the man in black, head bowed, silhouette suspiciously like Kip’s own these days. “White, huh? That’s a little raging-assholey,” Kip said.
“I couldn’t give up the idea altogether.”
“By which I mean, thank you, grandfather.”
“Stop. I’m getting weepy.”
“Is there a weapon for me?”
“I thought you’d enjoy going into battle armed with your wit,” Andross said.
“But you’d not want me to go into battle defenseless.”
Andross didn’t smile. He simply held out his hand. In it was a single Nine Kings card.
In a flash, Kip remembered the other cards, but the memories were fragmentary: Andross the Red, and The Master. Now this, a third card for Andross Guile, called simply The Guile. In Janus Borig’s exquisite style, it showed an old man seated in darkness, eyes glowing red-gold. The faintest glow outlined his head against the darkness. His fingers were colored claws, in each color.
One of each color, because Andross was a full-spectrum polychrome. Well, that would have been nice to remember before now. Or maybe Kip would have guessed it was merely symbolic of having the other Colors on the Spectrum under his fingers.
“Cute,” Kip said.
“Not quite turtle-bear cute, but I like it.”
“You’re a motherfucker.”
“In more ways than one.”
“That’s all you’ve got for me? Scorn and a card?” Kip asked. “You give them weapons; you give me knowledge. Ordinarily, I’d see deep meaning in that. Today it’s just a distraction. It’s always games and bullshit with you, isn’t it?”
Viewing the cards only took an instant, but it might louse Kip up for hours or days. Another Andross Guile card? How bad might it be to View that? Forget it. Kip would either want to murder the man standing here in front of him, or worse, he might understand him. Either way, Kip might be shaken for hours. Hours he didn’t have.
Andross said, “Also, I’m ready to tell you your family history. Your mother’s history. Your father’s. Your uncle’s. Mine. It’ll be deeply unpleasant for both of us, but perhaps it’s time.”
“Forget it. This is my family,” Kip said, gesturing to the Mighty.
“Your choice,” Andross said, with that air that implied, as ever, that Kip was a fool.
Kip tucked the card away carelessly, like it was trash. “Funny thing is, grandfather, after all the time I’ve spent with you, I’ve come to a belated but very important realization: you just aren’t worth getting to know better. Thanks for the armor. Goodbye.”
He picked up his helm from the slave on the way out. It was a dragon’s head. With fur on it. Sonuvabitch.
Chapter 101
Teia was only half-unlucky. All things considered, that felt pretty good.
Between her capture and falling asleep for ‘just a moment,’ she’d lost much of the day, though she finally wasn’t high anymore. She’d first gone to see if Ben-hadad was still tied up, but he was gone. Rescued, she assumed. Or at least she hoped so.
She wanted to find her friends, to tell them everything. But there was no time to hunt them down. She had other hunting to do.
Atevia Zelorn wasn’t at any of his warehouses; he wasn’t at any of his favorite taverns or brothels on Teia’s way—but he was at his own home. Her favorite wine merchant/serial cheater/Braxian high priest hadn’t left yet.
She crouched invisibly outside one window until he made his excuses to his beautiful wife and headed out for his ‘ long-planned business meeting.’ She said, “Please don’t get drunk tonight? I promised the children we’d attend the predawn pyrotechnics. They’re still having a few, I hear . . . despite everything.”
If Teia had her way, those would be the last words the woman ever said to her husband. Atevia made his promises and headed out, climbing up into a wagon that his slaves had brought around.
Teia timed her own climbing up into the back of the wagon with Atevia climbing up into the front seat so that no one noticed the weight displacement, and then she carefully tucked herself in with the great wine barrels, spreading the master cloak out over herself.
They stopped half an hour later, and men unloaded the barrels and brought them into a dingy little workshop. Teia had gotten very good at taking little glimpses and moving when the timing was right. She dropped off the far side of the wagon so that when the cloak flared from the fall, no one would have a chance to see her momentarily visible legs.
Atevia Zelorn put on a new cowl before he climbed down. This one was lined with fine mail.
The man or woman who received the shipment had one very similar. He or she didn’t speak, and moved carefully, so it wasn’t until Teia risked a blast of paryl through the new person’s clothing that she was able to tell the other figure was a woman.
The woman held up a gloved hand to Atevia, fingers extending, twice.
“Ten minutes. Fine, fine,” Atevia said, putting a growl into his voice. It wasn’t the greatest disguise, but there were more men than women in the Order, so perhaps he figured it was good enough. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
He stepped outside, and the servants opened the barrels. The woman dismissed them and then moved from barrel to barrel. She held a small vial in one hand. It stank. Teia recognized it as a common emetic.
The hell?
But then she understood. The woman sniffed and then tasted each wine in turn, stirring them first with a big ladle.
Satisfied they weren’t poisoned, she put aside the emetic. Then she went to her workbench and pulled out bundles of wrapped vegetation. She worked with the speed and efficiency of a physicker or an apothecary, inspecting the leaves of several plants Teia didn’t know and numerous poppy bulbs. Then she began counting out the leaves into piles, rejecting those too old or dry, and cracking the poppy bulbs and collecting the brown seeds into cups. Leaves of three different kinds of plant went directly into the wine, each counted out, and then the poppy was ground with a mortar and pestle, added to the barrels, and stirred.