“What, like plants?” Gavin asked.
“No, the imbalances in it,” he said.
“What are you talking about, ‘the imbalances’?” Gavin said. “Prisms take care of any color imbalances.”
“You’re the first Prism to do that fully since Vician’s Sin,” Orholam said. “Since that time, the . . . the dark ones have been tolerated by the Chromeria for what they do. In subtle ways and explicit when necessary, drafters have been forbidden to harm them.”
“But why? How’s this fit with balancing?”
“It’s really hard—” Orholam coughed unconvincingly. “It’s hard to take a breath tied like this. I’m not sure if I can answer—”
Gunner lifted the burning match cord on the linstock close to the old man’s face and then began moving it toward the fuse. “What if I say please?”
Orholam cleared his throat. “Most of the bane form here, and spin out through the sea. The dark ones devour the bane. Generally when the crystals are small and harmless. The bane only become truly dangerous when wights find them, because the bane can be used to amplify wights’ powers. But when the bane are small, they’re just food for the dark ones, forming constantly—just a consequence of magic in our world. Even a Prism balancing only minimizes how many appear. So in certain ways, this is your fault, too, Guile.”
“Mine?!”
“See! I told you this wasn’t on me!” Gunner said.
Orholam said, “With you balancing in truth, there were fewer bane, so the sea—err, so the dark ones had to go swim far from here to find other food. With them all feeding at the far corners of the seas, their net was spread too thin here to catch the sudden surge of bane that erupted once you so suddenly stopped balancing.”
“So it’s kind of both of our faults?” Gavin asked. “How do you know all this?”
“I’m a prophet. Knowing is what we do. It’s not all about the future. In a world like ours, it’s just as often about the past.”
“Fine, then, no answer is fine,” Gavin said. Maybe Orholam had been some kind of historian before he’d been captured and press-ganged, chained to his oar. Maybe he’d once had access to books Gavin had never known. “What was that about ‘the needed nine’?”
“Can you cut me loose yet?” Orholam asked. “It would be so much easier—”
“No!” Gunner growled.
“Nine of the dark ones survived into our era. Nine were enough to devour all the bane that formed. On the day Uluch Assan killed the ninth, Dazen Guile’s gift awoke.”
“My gift? Drafting black, you mean.”
“I’m not going to be more specific.”
“But you know.”
“Oh yes. I kept misunderstanding what I needed to do and say here until Orholam revealed it all to me. But you don’t deserve the same treatment. You haven’t acted with the same obedience I have. You’ve distanced yourself from the truth, so the distance between you and the truth is your fault, not mine. Regardless, one might say, in a way, everything here—the war, the False Prism’s War, all the death and misery and destruction—was one man’s fault.”
He called it the ‘False Prism’s War’ rather than the Prisms’ War. Fuck you, Orholam. “I’m tired of taking the blame for everything,” Gavin said.
“He warn’t talking ’bout you,” Gunner said. There was a weariness in his voice.
“There was a tenuous, oh so tenuous, balance, but one that had stood for four centuries,” Orholam said. “Others kicked out other legs of the stool, but you, Gunner, you kicked out the leg that made it all fall. That’s why you get to be here now. You wanted the ultimate test for your gifts? It’s coming. You want to be a legend? Maybe that, too. But your Name in history depends on what he does.” He waggled a finger, but his arm was tied to the barrel, so it wasn’t clear where he was pointing.
“Me?” Gavin asked. “Gunner’s legend depends on me?”
“As does my own life.”
“Your life?”
“Yes, but I’ve given up on that. Doesn’t matter. You’re not that man, Gavin Guile. What does matter is that if you don’t succeed, Gunner will die out here.”
“I thought you said I live!” Gunner protested.
“Today. But if Gavin—well, this Gavin, since one is supposed to be very careful with words when giving prophecy—if this man here fails, you’ll eventually despair, drink seawater, and try to swim home. I think you drown while fighting sharks. Regardless, they eat you before or after you drown or a little of you before you drown—your left foot?—and then the rest of you after.”
“Do I put up a good fight?” Gunner asked. He was standing delicately on his right foot as if the deck were covered in broken glass and he didn’t want to put down his left foot. He made little fists with his toes.
Orholam twisted his mouth, a man trapped between his morality and his mortality. “For a man who’s cooked in the sun for days without shelter and drunk seawater . . . you certainly, uh, give it your all.”
“All of ’em are here?” Gunner asked.
“All eight,” Orholam said.
“Do I kill any afore they get me?” Gunner asked.
“You don’t kill any of the dark ones, and they don’t get you,” Orholam said.
Gavin expected Gunner to rage at that, but he got very quiet instead. He removed the match cord from the linstock. Stubbed it out on the great cannon, then buffed out the black smear with his coat sleeve.
“He’s a beaut, ain’t he?” Gunner said. “Makes me almost want to turn pirateer again, just to get the chance to try him in battle. Curved shots? Hell, he’s got two dozen other tricks that are even better. I sailed out a few leagues from the Jaspers and popped off as many shots as I could for weeks, getting my mastery up. I can make a Compelling Argument myself, alone, on a mere count to fifty-seven. Four of that aim time. See that tank over there, Guile? Water. Pump that up afore battle, puts it under pressure. Every ten shots, Compie gets too hot. Spray that water inside and out, then that lever tilts the whole boy up to drain—whole thing! counterweighted so’s I can do it myself—swab, tilt him back, and go on as afore. Adds only a fifteen count to the process. With the right crew and materiel, he can fire all day without getting overhot or cracking.”
“He’s really something,” Gavin said, puzzled.
“Man’d be crazy to lie what you just told me,” Gunner told Orholam. “So I think you’re not just honest, you’re brave. That deserves rewardin’.”
He cut Orholam free.
Perhaps wisely, Orholam kept his mouth shut now, even as he rubbed feeling back into his legs and arms.
“White Mist Reef ain’t like the Everdark Gates,” Gunner said. “Men have shot the Gates afore. There are ways through. You need luck and a chart and a great crew, but it can be done. It’s special, sure, but not legendary. But no one’s made it through White Mist Reef. At least, none who’ve also made it back. No one. I thought if anyone could do it, it’d be you an’ me, Guile.”