The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,226

that had changed the entire course of both their lives, and of history itself.

“Shall I send him away?” Presser asked, shifting from foot to foot, rubbing circles awkwardly on one of his buttocks.

It was impossible that she should send him a message. No. Not exactly impossible. And it was impossible that it could have been sent by anyone else.

“Bring him in.”

Andross had entertained a hope that he might recognize the old man. He didn’t. Dark skin faded by the years, clothing fine and well maintained but showing wear. Thus, middling nobility or a rich merchant dressing a bit above his station. There were probably a dozen of the former sort that Andross could call to mind, and several hundred of the latter that he hadn’t bothered to memorize.

“High Excellency,” the man said after the longest possible pause and with the bare minimum tilt of his head.

A lordling, then. A merchant wouldn’t dare so little respect.

“Do you know how the rest of that sentence goes?” Andross asked.

“No.”

The old man added no honorific. Very odd. There was something familiar about those eyes, as blue as the morning sky, but Andross was certain he’d never met the man before. Perhaps he’d known a relation?

That didn’t limit the circle much. Andross met thousands of people each year. One of the things that had most pained him about his long confinement had been not meeting people, not seeing others overawed at his presence, or having occasion to prove that their awe was justified.

It niggled more than a little that this old man seemed . . . what was it? Not exactly hostile. Disgusted, maybe.

Contemptuous?

Oho, now, that tempted Andross toward violence.

The old man shook his head. “Disappointing. Here I’ve forgiven you a thousand times for all the ruin you brought to my house. No, ten thousand. Every day three times with my prayers for every one of these long years, at least when I could bear it. And yet still my heart longs to hate you.”

“Excuse me?” Andross asked. Blankly curious.

“I was told not to tell you my name, and that how long it took for you to guess it would tell us both something.”

Oh please. “How tiresome,” Andross said. “Do you have something for me, or not? You asked to see me, after all.”

“No, I didn’t ask for this at all. I was sent to see you. You are to finish the quote. She insisted you could.” He clearly had his doubts.

Andross sighed. Better to get this over with, he supposed. “Ninharissi called me ‘A man of Parnassian storms and no wonder, for in you are joined a volcanic wit and glacial emotions. When they mix, it is a cataclysm of fire and rain and lightning and molten rock, flames and floods, lava flows and mudslides, laying waste to everything and everyone in a thousand leagues.’ ”

His memory hadn’t abandoned him after all. Who else could recall such, so perfectly?

“She adjudged you well,” the old man said. “No wonder she wanted nothing to do with you.”

It was a misstep. “Was Ninharissi your lady, then?” Andross asked.

“No. But I see why the Third Eye gave me those words to say. They were for both of us.”

Of course. Now it made sense.

The message wasn’t from Ninharissi herself, but merely from a Seer who had stolen them from the ether. A little magical eavesdropper, spying on a couple’s intimate moments. Disgusting.

Andross had hoped the message was some word from beyond the grave, a treasure a dead woman had wished delivered to him while he was in these straits.

It was all very disappointing, but it made sense. Of course, only the Third Eye could see where she had never been, and into the past as well as into the future. She was an ally more dangerous than even Janus Borig, but couldn’t be taken from the game, for she would be a foe far more dangerous still.

Thus, Andross had made no move against her, but he was glad she’d chosen to stay far away.

“How is Polyhymnia?” he asked. He wasn’t supposed to know that name. No one was. But swive her for pretending to speak for one he loved. “Has she some guidance for the war?” He felt some hope. After all, Orholam’s Seers might choose not to join sides in any normal war, but in a war against heretics and pagans? Surely this visit meant she was answering Andross’s letters at last.

“I don’t know who that is,” the old man said, “but the Third Eye told me she’d