Zymun must have just dozed off. Kip had woken his enemy. With blue sharpening his senses, if Kip had waited even a few moments …
He hadn’t. That was no use. Commander Ironfist had told them, ‘Looking back doesn’t help. Dwell on your mistakes when you’re in safety. Get to safety first.’
“If you think I’m going to help you, you’re insane,” Zymun said.
Kip groaned from the pain of moving his arms. He didn’t know if he would have the strength even to lurch across the boat. He groped around blindly, missing the oars that he’d released. He said, “Longer I fumble around for the oars, the longer I get to rest.”
“Right hand. Up and forward. Up more. Use the chain, stupid.”
The oar, held in its oar lock, bobbed and swayed with the action of the waves. It smacked Kip’s fingernails. Kip grunted. He bent his wrist to reach the manacle, and followed the chain to the oar. He hadn’t forgotten about it. But it was better to look stupid.
It was better not to look like he was calculating exactly how long that chain was. Kip grabbed the oar. Then he repeated with his left hand, and he started rowing again.
“More to port,” Zymun said, bored. “That’s it.”
There was only one way this could work. Kip had to knock Zymun into the water and not fall in himself. Once Zymun fell in the water, his pistol would be useless. He would only have time to throw one burst of something at Kip. Because all luxin had weight, that action—regardless of which color of luxin he chose to throw—would cause the reaction of pushing Zymun deep under the waves.
If Zymun missed with that first strike, Kip had a chance. He would have to row like mad. When he was able to see how far from shore they were, he could decide whether to risk going back and killing Zymun, or leaving him to his fate in the sea. After Zymun’s impossible escape through shark-filled waters last time, Kip planned to kill him and be sure.
If Kip was too slow, though, he’d get shot. With no idea what direction to row, and as weak as he was, he would die. If he knocked them both into the water, he would die. Zymun was the better swimmer even when Kip was healthy.
There would be only one slim chance. Kip would be ready for it. His eyes, shielded from the light under the blindfold, were naturally wide, dilated. He tried to narrow them consciously, a trick any experienced drafter could do instantly. If he was dazzled by the light, he’d miss. If—
Zymun’s weight shifted. “Orholam,” he said.
The moment was on him so suddenly, Kip almost missed it.
“A galley,” Zymun said. The blue luxin Kip was holding told him that Zymun’s voice was muted by being turned to the side, looking. “I think it’s pirates.”
Now! Blue luxin tore through Kip’s skin at his temples. With fingers of blue luxin, he flipped the blindfold off his head—and leapt.
Chapter 4
“I smell so much as a resiny fart, and I paints my deck chunky, little Guile. Red and gray and bony, you elucidate? I know luxinly smells,” Gunner said as he led him onto the deck of the Bitter Cob. “Or more like, I paint it all in brown and squashy, right, right?”
Gavin walked into the light with a lead heart.
“Right,” he said. Because he had feces for brains. Funny.
“Luxinly? Luxic? Luxinic?” Gunner asked. The man loved language the way a wife beater loves his wife.
“Luxiny, but I like your way better.”
“Bah.”
It was close to noon, choppy seas tossing the light galley more than he expected. These Angari ships were different. But what had been the most salient fact of his whole life—the light—struck him as insignificant. It was an overcast day, but with lots of light for a Prism. But this light kissed his skin like a lingering lover leaving. The hues of gray and white and black gave him despair where before the scintillant spectra had given him inconceivable power. He’d thought he’d adjusted to the loss of his colors, but it was one thing to face his loss in the darkness of a prison, another thing altogether to see that his prison was the whole world. And Gunner knew it. He had taken one look at Gavin’s eyes the night he’d captured him and he’d known.
So why is Gunner paranoid now?
Because he’s Gunner.
“On yer knobbies,” Gunner said.
Gavin got on his knees, planting them wide on the deck so the rolling motion wouldn’t knock him down. He couldn’t tell if the stretching hurt good or hurt bad, but as long as he didn’t lose his head or any other limb more important to him, any break from the oars was a good thing.
Gunner looked at him. “What happened to Gavin Guile, levering the world on the fulcrum of his wantings?”