The Broken Eye(9)

On one level, this was the clearest thing Gunner had said to him yet, but Gavin had told Gunner he wasn’t Gavin. It was probably one of the dumber things he’d done in the last year, though there were a lot of contenders for that crown. “He died.” That ought to work, regardless of which Gavin Gunner meant.

“Tragical. How?”

The trick to working with the insane was never to profess surprise. Nor to expect it. Opacity was a dagger Gavin could wield, too. “I ran out of mercies until I had only the musket-ball mercy left. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. Boom boom. Meatsack mercy. Yellow cell red, liver made dead.”

Gunner folded his arms. He looked at Gavin like he was very puzzling. “You rave.”

“I crave.”

“You knave.”

“I slave.”

“I save.”

“From waves?”

“And you gave,” Gunner said. He gestured to his big white musket, propped against a doorframe some paces away.

Gavin stopped to let Gunner win. He did want to get a better look at that odd thing, but Gunner alternately wanted to show it off and looked paranoid that someone was going to steal it. Gavin couldn’t pay too much attention to what Gunner treasured. Nor too little.

Gunner laughed, sealing his win, taking Gavin’s hesitation to be a concession of defeat. They’d played this game before. Years and years ago now. If Gavin weren’t utterly in the man’s power, and Gunner utterly insane, Gavin thought he might like him. Gunner said, “I don’t take men who’ve been in Ceres’s bosom too sincere. Them watery kisses make men crazy, and ain’t no Guile started out overmuch sane. Tell it straight as shooting. Are you Dazen Guile, back from the dead? You tell me this, and not half the tale.”

Which didn’t mean what the words meant. Gunner’s patience was shorter than his fuses. So Gavin gave it in brief: “Never died. Captured my brother at Sundered Rock, and took his place. His friends looked better than mine, so I took my brother’s clothes, and I took his place. But not a month back, I decided my imprisoned brother had gone frothing mad, and I killed him.”

It was so simple to say the words. Gavin had thought it would be impossible to tell the truth he’d worked so hard to hide for so long. But he felt nothing. He should feel something, shouldn’t he?

“The sea she sends me mysteries to invigorate,” Gunner said.

Gavin was sure, this time, that Gunner had used the wrong word on purpose. “You’re quite an invigorator. No wonder you’re Ceres’s favorite.”

Gunner spat into the water, but Gavin could tell he was pleased. “You’re Dazen? Straight bullseye?”

“I been shootin’ in the dark so long I ain’t sure what I am, now. I was Dazen, though. Straight shootin’.” Gavin wasn’t sure why he did that, dropping into patter when he spoke with others who did so. He’d always done it, though, copying accents and odd phrasing when he spent too long in any one place.

“You say this because you know Gunner worked for Dazen,” Gunner said. “You’re lying. Hoping to edge with me.”

Hoping to edge?—oh, hoping to gain an edge. “Sure. And before I killed my brother, he told me your birth name was Uluch Assan. You were so very important to him, those were his last words.”

Gunner’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Not impossible for a Prism to learn an old name.”

“Before you agreed to work for me—me Dazen—all those years ago, you told me lies about how you killed that sea demon as we sat in the slaves’ quarters drinking that foul peach liquor. And when you professed to believe that there was no such thing as superviolet luxin, we played a little game with a feather to quell your doubts.”

A worried look crossed the pirate captain’s face. “Took Gunner three shots to hit that damned dancing feather. Was an eagle feather, though, not quail.”

There was no point correcting him, so Gavin continued, “I feared I’d made you so furious that you wouldn’t work for me. I let you hit it … on the sixth shot, ya damned liar.”

Gunner went rigid. Shit. The man told lies to aggrandize himself so often, he might think that his version was the truth. Not the battle to pick, Gavin. Gunner strode away suddenly, heading to midship.

Gavin stayed where he was, on his aching knees. It was bad stretching now, he was certain of it. The two sailors who’d accompanied him looked confused as to what they were expected to do.

“Free his grabbies!” Gunner shouted. He was rummaging in a barrel.

The sailors unlocked the manacles, but kept Gavin on his knees.

Gunner grabbed something from a barrel and threw it at Gavin. He bobbled it in his bandaged, stiff hands, and it bounced on the deck. A sailor fetched it and gave it back to him. A big, wrinkled apple.