The Broken Eye(6)

If it hadn’t been for his Blackguard training for the last months and the fact he had a gun leveled at his head, Kip wouldn’t have been able to move. As it was, the unfamiliar exercise reduced his muscles to quivering clumsiness. His back was agony. The fronts of his legs, kept constantly flexed as he tried to keep his balance in the bobbing boat, were murder. His arms and shoulders were somehow worse. And his hands! Dear Orholam, it was like he’d dipped them in misery. His burned left hand that had been slowly healing was now a claw. It hurt to tighten, it hurt to loosen, it hurt to leave it alone.

Kip was fat and frightened and finished.

“More to port,” Zymun said, bored. He didn’t think enough of Kip to pursue why Kip had smiled. He was too canny to come close at a slight provocation, and the waves were too heavy today for him to risk putting himself off balance for a momentary pleasure.

He’d never offered to take a turn at the oars.

The only thing that kept Kip going was fear. It was exhausting to be afraid for two days straight, and it was starting to make Kip a bit furious.

But what can I do? I’m blind and reduced to such weakness I couldn’t win a fight with a kitten, muscles sure to clamp or collapse at any move I make. Zymun has set the field. He has the cards: six colors and a gun.

But as soon as Kip saw it as a game of Nine Kings, his terror eased. He imagined analyzing the game with the patience of a blue. Could Zymun be nearly as frightening an opponent as Andross Guile? No. But if you have a terrible hand you can still lose to a bad opponent.

Zymun could kill Kip at any moment, easily and without fear of justice or repercussions, because no one would ever know.

Yes, yes, we’ve established that, but so what?

Kip’s best card was Zymun’s laziness. Zymun knew they needed to row or they could fall prey to pirates and be enslaved. Zymun didn’t want to row himself, so Kip was safe until he irritated Zymun enough to overcome his laziness, or until Zymun didn’t need him any longer.

Zymun had great cards, but a great card that you never play is a worthless card.

Zymun had a ludicrously inflated opinion of himself—he’d already spoken at length about all the things he would do once he reached the Chromeria. Kip didn’t appear in those stories, which told Kip all he needed to know about his own future. But Zymun’s inflated opinion of himself meant he had a proportionally deflated opinion of others. Kip acted beaten, and Zymun believed it. Of course he was superior. Of course Kip would be devastated by that fact and realize that he was helpless.

“I really expected the sharks to get you at Garriston,” Kip said, threading a grudging admiration through his tone.

Zymun wasn’t an idiot, despite his arrogance. Once the sun went down, he lost his luxin advantage. Then he only had three cards: the pistol, Kip’s injuries, and that his own muscles weren’t devastated from a dozen hours of grueling labor. Anytime Kip had turned over last night in his sleep as he lay in the front of their little boat, under the bench, Zymun had woken instantly, the flintlock already cocked and pointed at him.

Kip’s odds of getting accidentally shot if Zymun twitched in his sleep were depressingly high.

“Wasn’t a pleasant swim,” Zymun said. After a silence, he said, “I expected that waterfall to get you back at Rekton.”

Peeved, Kip the Lip almost brought up their next meeting—in the rebel camp, when Zymun hadn’t recognized him. But taunting a man with a dozen sure ways to kill you wasn’t the height of good sense.

“Guess we’ve something else in common then,” Kip said. “Hard to kill.” He shouldn’t have bothered trying to draw them together with some illusory common bonds. Zymun was pure reptile. Kip thought the boy must try to hide it most of the time. With Kip, he didn’t. Another sign of how Kip’s time was limited.

“We’re the blood of Guile,” Zymun said. “But you’ll forever be a bastard. I’ll prove myself to grandfather, and be an heir. The heir.”

Kip rowed. “You’re sure?” he asked. “About Karris being your mother? I never heard so much as a whisper.” He hated being blindfolded, having to sift Zymun’s tones of voice rather than look for the momentary grimaces or twitches that might betray the truth.

“She was betrothed to the Prism when they conceived me. That makes me legitimate, to most people. When he broke their betrothal, she went and stayed with relations.”

“In Tyrea?” Kip asked. That was where he’d first seen Zymun, defying his master, throwing fireballs at Kip, and forcing Kip to jump off the waterfall.

“Blood Forest. Little town called Apple Grove. I went to Tyrea later. It was the only place to go to learn drafting that wasn’t the Chromeria.”