Chapter 49
Kip followed Grinwoody sullenly. Everything about the room was the same as always. Door, curtain, darkness. Andross Guile was already seated at the table.
As Grinwoody brought out the superviolet lantern, Kip took a seat across from the old man.
“Can I use your deck this time?” Kip asked.
“No,” Andross Guile said. “You play the hand given you. You’re a bastard. You get the bad deck.”
“Oh, I’m a bastard now? So you don’t doubt who my father is?” Kip swallowed. He shouldn’t have said it.
But Andross Guile said nothing. He picked up his deck and began shuffling. “That my son sired you has never been in question, you fool. Even your voice sounds like his. The question was whether your mother was a concubine or simply a whore. If he’s claimed she was a concubine merely to vex me, I shan’t let it stand. I know for a fact there was no marriage, and I bet you know it, too.”
“I didn’t exist yet, so actually, no.” Snotty. Dangerous, Kip.
“You still have that bandage on your hand?” Andross asked.
“Yes, my lord.”
His eyebrows lifted above the dark glasses for a moment: Oh, it’s “my lord” now?
Kip didn’t know if he hated himself more for his earlier recklessness, or for his later deference to the old buzzard.
“Take off the bandage.”
Untying the knot near his wrist took his fingers and his teeth, but soon Kip had unwrapped the linen. The burns were healing, but the skin was pink where it wasn’t white with scars, and his fingers were bent permanently. He could tighten them into a fist, but it hurt to even try to straighten them. The chirurgeon and Ironfist both urged him to try, but it was agony.
“Put your hand out, bastard, I’m blind.”
Kip put his hand on the table. The old man put his hand on top of Kip’s. “Please,” Kip said. “It’s very painful.”
Andross Guile hmmphed. He traced his bony, pale, long, loose-skinned fingers over Kip’s hand, heedless of the oily unguent. It stung, but Kip held still.
“You’ll lose the use of this hand quickly if you don’t stretch your fingers,” Andross said.
“Yes, my lord. I know.”
Andross Guile turned Kip’s hand over, palm down. “You know. So you’ve chosen to become a cripple? Why?”
Kip clenched his jaw. Swallowed. “Because it hurts.”
“Because it hurts?” Andross mocked. “You’re ashamed. I can hear it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You should be. Keep your hand on the table. Scream when it hurts too much.”
What?
Andross pushed down on Kip’s hand, flattening it slowly. Kip felt the new-formed skin at his joints tear open. A squeak escaped his lips, but he didn’t scream.
I’m a big tub of lard, a shame, an embarrassment, but I am the fucking turtle-bear. You can go to hell, Andross Guile. You old, heartless, cruel—
The ligaments in Kip’s hand were on fire, his whole palm was touching the tabletop, but his fingers were stubborn claws, arched up.
And then suddenly, the pressure stopped.
Tears were leaking down Kip’s cheeks. He gasped and cradled his hand to his chest.
Andross Guile said, “That which you would have serve you, you must bend to your will. Even your own body. Perhaps especially your own body, fat one. Did the skin tear?”
It was a moment before Kip could trust his voice. “Yes, my lord.”
“Smear the unguent back into the cuts. You don’t want it getting infected.”
With a trembling hand, Kip did.
“You know what I’m going to tell you next, right?” Andross Guile said.
“Keep doing it, all day, every day, so that it heals right,” Kip said.
Then he felt another wave of shame. He did know what to do. He simply hadn’t had the will to do it. Andross Guile didn’t even have to say anything.
“You did well,” the old man said instead.
“Huh?”
“You didn’t scream. I expected you to. So this time, no stakes. A practice game. Next time is for your little friend, though, so I hope you’re getting better.”
With no further talking, Andross Guile dealt himself his cards. Six facedown, two up: a Stalker and a Green Warden.
That meant he was using his green and shadow deck. One of his best. Kip wrapped his bandages loosely around his hand and drew his own cards from the pure white deck Andross had given him to play. Kip had played with it twice before, and he was finally getting comfortable with its strategy. His up cards were the Eye of Heaven—a power enhancer—and the Dome of Aracles.
Kip cursed inwardly. No stakes? He’d just drawn this deck’s best possible opening hand. His hand cards were good, too. He actually had a reasonable shot at winning. There were no choices for his first two rounds, and unless he drew something game-changing in the interim, all he had to do was survive until the sixth round, so Kip said, “When you say we play for my little friend, what do you mean?”