known, there was no sign of Bas's difference in his facial features.
'I am sorry for coming out of turn, Lord Prism. I have a question, and I did not wish to interrupt my Freeing to ask it.'
That he was interrupting someone else's Freeing to ask the question didn't occur to him, of course.
'Please, ask,' Gavin said.
'I heard Evi Grass talking about Brightwater Wall. Evi is a green/yellow bichrome. She's from the Blood Forest, but I don't think she's scary at all. My mother used to tell me that anyone with red hair is just as like to set you on fire as look at you, but Evi isn't like that.'
Gavin knew Evi well. Not classically bright, she was incredibly intuitive but rarely trusted herself. At least she hadn't years ago.
'Evi once saved me from a charging-'
'What did she say, Bas?' Gavin asked.
'She didn't say anything, she just saved me. I guess she might have yelled. I couldn't tell you for sure-'
'What did Evi say about Brightwater Wall?'
'I don't like it when you interrupt, Lord Prism. It makes me nervous.'
Gavin stifled his impatience. Pushing harder would make Bas completely incapable of speech.
Bas saw that Gavin wasn't going to push and then thought for a moment. Gavin could see him find the mental path once more. 'Evi said the brightwater was drafted perfectly. She said she didn't remember you being a superchromat. I can't see the color differentiations myself, of course, but I don't think she'd lie, and Gavin Guile wasn't a superchromat. His brother Dazen was. And you're taller than Gavin. He wore boots to make himself look taller, but Dazen was taller by his thirteenth birthday. I remember that day. It was sunny. My grandmother said that Orholam had always smiled on the Guiles. I was wearing my blue coat…'
Gavin wasn't listening. He felt like the floor had dropped out from under his feet. He'd known this moment was coming. He'd expected it for sixteen years. He'd gone into his first meetings as Gavin expecting anyone, everyone, to point and scream, 'Impostor! Counterfeit!' Others had figured it out, but never in a way he couldn't contain. He couldn't discredit Bas. The man was immune to political currents, and everyone knew it. And if asked, Bas would point out a hundred differences between Gavin and Dazen. By the time he was done speaking, the Gavin mask would be destroyed.
And yet he'd come alone. On this night, of all nights.
'So my question was… my question was, why are you lying, Dazen? Why are you pretending to be Gavin? Dazen is bad. He kills people. He killed the White Oaks. All of them. They say he went from room to room in their mansion, even killing the servants, and then he burned it all down to hide his crimes. The children were trapped in the basement. They found their little bodies in a pile. They were hugging each other. I went there. I saw them.' Bas stopped speaking, evidently consumed by that old image. With his perfect memory, it must have been vivid indeed. 'I told those little charred bodies that I would kill Dazen Guile,' Bas said.
Gavin felt an old dread, like the sting of an old master's lash. Bas was a green/blue/superviolet polychrome. Every drafter was changed over time by his colors. Only the wildness of green would make the formerly order- obsessed Bas skip his place in line. But the orderliness of blue was making him crazy to know why, to see how things fit together. 'Bas, I'm going to tell you something I've only told one other person in the world. I'm going to answer your question. You deserve it.' He lowered his voice. 'When I was sixteen years old, I had a… a vision. A waking dream. I was in front of a presence. I fell on my face. I knew he was holy, and I was afraid-'
'Orholam himself?' Bas asked. He looked doubtful. 'My mother told me that people who say they speak for Orholam are usually lying. And Dazen is a liar!' His voice pitched up at the end.
The last thing Gavin needed was Bas shouting something about Dazen. 'Do you want to hear my answer or not?' he asked sharply.
Bas hesitated. 'Yes, but don't you-'
Gavin stabbed him in the heart.
Bas's eyes went wide. He grabbed Gavin's arms. Gavin withdrew the dagger.
Coldly, so coldly, Gavin said, 'You gave the full measure, Bas. Your service will not be forgotten. Your failures are forgotten, erased. I give you absolution. I give you freedom.'
By the time he said 'absolution,' Bas was dead.
Gavin lowered the man to the floor carefully. He went and knocked at the side door. The Blackguards came in and took the body, and just like that, Gavin got away with murder.
Chapter 79
The man was a liar. Kip didn't know exactly what was lie and what was truth, but Lord Omnichrome was King Garadul's right hand. They'd massacred his village. For nothing. If murder was nothing to them, what was a lie?
But there was truth here, like all the best lies. That really was what the Pact meant. No wonder they talked about it in sidelong conversations, hushed tones. You got old, you broke your halo, you became like a mad dog. They had to put you down. Kip remembered when Corvan's dog had been bitten by a raccoon and later started foaming at the mouth. Corvan, the alcaldesa, and some of the other men loaded muskets and went after it. Corvan himself blew its brains out. He hid his face afterward, and everyone pretended not to see his tears. It had been a year before he talked about that dog, but when he did, it was never of its madness, never of killing his dog. This was the same. No one talked about the Freeing because no one wanted to dishonor the dead: 'Kip was a great man, right until he went crazy and started trying to kill his friends. Right until we had to put him down.'
So it was a hard truth. That didn't make it a lie. Indeed, it probably made it more likely that it was true.
But no one in this crowd wanted to accept that. They wanted someone to blame for the death of their parents. They didn't want to die themselves. They could dress that up in some holy-sounding bullshit, but Kip had seen behind the veil. These people were murderers. Gavin was a good man. A great man, a giant among dwarfs. So he had to do hard things. Great men made the hard choices, so everyone could survive. So he held people to the Pact, so what? Everyone swore to it. Everyone knew what they were swearing. There was no mystery, no con. They made a deal, and they liked the deal until they had to pay the price.
These people were cowards, oathbreakers, scum.
I have got to get out of here.
He turned and saw the last woman he expected to see here. 'Ilytian water clocks claim this is the shortest night of the year,' Felia Guile said from the doorway. 'But it's always been the longest for you.'
Gavin looked up at her, gray-faced. 'I didn't expect you until dawn.'
She smiled. 'There was some disturbance with the order. Bas the Simple cut in earlier than he was supposed to. Some withdrew until later.' She shrugged.
Withdrew? So maybe they know. It's all falling apart.
Maybe it's best this way. I kill my own mother now, and she doesn't have to see it all come crashing down.
'Son,' she said. 'Dazen.' The word was almost a sigh, a release of pent-up pressure. Truth, spoken aloud after years of lies.
'Mother.' It was good to see her happy, but terrible to see her here. 'I can't-I didn't even take you on that flight I promised you.'
'You really can fly?'
He nodded, his throat tight.
'My son can fly.' Her smile lit her face. 'Dazen, I am so proud of you.'
Gavin tried to speak, but failed.
Her eyes were gentle. 'I'll help you,' she said. She knelt at the rail, opting for more formality. With his mother, Gavin should have known. 'Lord Prism, I have sins to confess. Will you shrive me?'
Gavin blinked back sudden tears, mastered himself. 'Gladly… daughter.'
Her attitude of simple piety helped him play his part. He was not her son, not here and now. He was her spiritual father, a link to Orholam on the holiest day of her life.
