The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,294

you get that?” Andross asked easily.

“Fighting Abaddon,” Kip said, as if it were a small thing. “Like I told you.”

“The art style’s Atashian, isn’t it?” Corvan asked. “I recognize that creature, though I’ve never heard it called a turtle-bear.”

“What have you heard it called?” Kip asked, though now, in looking at it, it seemed different than he remembered. The Turtle-Bear that had been seared into his arm had been a fat, round little thing, furry in all the wrong places, awkward as Kip himself. Now it seemed elongated, stronger, not nearly so ridiculous, like a juvenile . . .

“My maternal grandmother was Atashian,” Corvan said. “She had this ancient brooch that looked like that. She told me Atashians believed men were born with two natures. One was usually symbolized by the monkey: the chattering dung-flingers of the forest—social, passionate, but all-reliant on the tribe, attacking those the group disliked without an independent thought in their heads, warm, caretaking, but always looking to the group for approval. The other nature was usually symbolized by the snake: cold, dispassionate, patient in ambush, not shaken from the truth by anyone or anything, but also uncaring, heartless, rejecting company heedlessly. They believed that only when one brought these natures together, not lukewarm but cold and hot in the appropriate times, fur and scale, could one be truly wise. Only by bringing the contrary animal natures together could one become fully human, whether monkey and snake, or dog and scorpion, or turtle and bear. And the greatest of these become dragons.”

“A Dragon would be helpful now,” Kip said lightly. He looked at Andross Guile, who was watching cold as an asp. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a Dragon in the deck I missed?”

Andross’s eyes glittered darkly.

“Luxin-reactive tattoo dyes. A nice parlor trick,” Andross said. “An art lost long ago. We’ll talk about who in Blood Forest holds this secret, if we live long enough. In the meantime, let’s finish the game, shall we? Here, this will drain your excess luxin.”

Andross handed Kip a little cylinder much like the testing sticks used in the Threshing. Kip pressed his finger firmly on the black point and watched his colors swirl down into the stick’s bone-white body. Unlike the ivory of the testing sticks, though, here the colors dyed the stick fully their color and then faded in turn, swirling away like smoke.

They all waited until every color was gone, and then a few more seconds.

Without looking up, Andross said, “Grinwoody. The integrity of our game is intact?”

“Absolutely, my lord. I watched most carefully.”

Andross picked up his own deck and motioned that Kip could do the same.

Kip picked up his cards.

He had two turns left before Andross won. No more stalling.

Andross played another bane. That he appeared to have an insurmountable lead wasn’t slowing him down.

Kip supposed he could should feel flattered for that.

He did not feel flattered.

Andross pushed his eligible cards forward to attack Kip’s sad selection of defenders. Cannon Island could take out the Blue Bane but would be destroyed. Kip’s Lightguards and galleys couldn’t stop the other bane, and any of the Lightning cards Kip might have could only take out a few of Andross’s galleys, which was pointless.

The game was over. Kip was dead. He was going to lose everything.

Kip didn’t lay down his cards, though. He played two Lightning cards, killing the attacking galleys.

“Petty,” Andross said.

Still not touching any of the cards, Kip said, “I block the Blue Bane with Cannon Island. Oh, and I block the Red Bane and Dagnu with Ironfist.”

There was no Ironfist on the table. Everyone stopped for a moment, then double-checked to see if there had been some mistake.

“I see he has an interesting Rage mechanic that kicks in when he defends against a superior attack.”

Everyone in the room looked at Kip like he was mad.

Check it yourself, Kip wanted to say. But you don’t tell your prey how good the meat in the trap will taste. You let the bloody scent in the air do the convincing.

“That card’s a Lightguard,” Andross said.

“Oh, but he’s fighting extra hard for me,” Kip said archly, and he thought, like Súil did.

If there was one thing Andross Guile couldn’t stand, it was condescension.

The old Red angrily snatched up the card in his hand, and the trap snicked shut. His fingers broke the delicate layers of luxin across the face of the card, shattering the spiderweb-thin portrait of a Lightguard that Kip had copied with paryl and then laid atop Ironfist’s portrait.

“This is—”