The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,402

bane.

Where are you, Molokh?

It wasn’t hard to find. Though shielded from a mirror strike behind the bulk of a castle-like superstructure, Kip could follow the djinn’s hold on its lux storm.

Kip hit the Molokh with such righteous fury he could feel the man bowled off his feet. The last thing a slippery orange ever wanted was a direct confrontation—and Kip brought it, screaming all his psychic fury at what the Blood Robes were attempting. His will hit the Molokh with such force, he felt the man’s will simply snap. The petty god collapsed, unconscious, broken.

And again, Kip seized a lux storm and threw it down.

Kip split the cloud of nightmare, with the first half of it hitting the reds—who were defenseless against it, especially scattered and emotional as they were. The other half he threw at the yellows.

They liked to believe themselves perfectly balanced between emotion and reason. Now they found out how many of them were only deluding themselves.

This is why the old gods of the nine kingdoms kept to their own lands, Kip thought. They were always the greatest threat to one another. With the orange coursing through him, he could feel the connections between the bane and all their magic, not just the logical ones but the emotional ones as well. He could also hear through the array now.

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.

Of course. His time with the cards had prepared him for this: Blue gave sight in the array, just as it did with tapping the cards. Superviolet gave the structure and logic of the array and of the world itself. Orange had given him smell and a sense of the others in the world. So green would give touch, the sense of embodiment. Yellow would let him hear. Red would be taste; and sub-red pure emotion.

Kip sought Corvan Danavis’s command structure at the Great Fountain, and found it immediately. He looked for the figure of the general himself and found his awareness covered three-quarters of the distance between them, and then all of it. He could see Corvan barking directions rapid-fire to one man and then another. He could see the lines on the man’s face. But he couldn’t hear him.

Opening his awareness the smallest quantum to yellow—which translated to two of the smaller mirrors automatically dropping a yellow lens into their light streams—Kip could suddenly hear Danavis shouting, “—two hours until dark. You have to hold the walls until then. No drafting!”

Touching a bit of every other color brought all his senses together, just as the cards had taught him. He could cast some semblance of his self to any part of the Jaspers almost instantaneously.

Oh, he was going to kick ass now!

Even as he gathered his next attack, he could see that the Wight King must have sent urgent messages out. The bane were changing tack. The great, devastating lightstorms were being dissipated or hurled back out into the seas by the very gods who’d generated them.

They’d finally figured out that Kip would use their greatest weapon against themselves.

He cursed. Maybe he could get one last bane before the lux storms got away.

But as his will jumped through the array once more, he noticed something unexpected. Samila Sayeh was back in the blue bane. She was so damned resilient, she’d returned to the battle immediately, and this time she wouldn’t be taken unawares.

Worse, the Sub-red was moving again. What?! The Anat was dead!

Kip had definitely killed the man. His will jumped across the gap, and he could still see the body, but hidden from his line of sight—deliberately, no doubt—there was another will here, taking control. Another Anat. A woman had simply stepped forward into the old one’s place, taking up the mantle as easily as one would pick up a crown and settle it on one’s head.

There was no telling which of its powers she could use, but at least she could make it move. It seemed that as long as there was a sub-red wight with the will for it, there would be no end to the Anats. Kip would have to kill every last wight here.

No!

What had seemed so easy moments ago suddenly felt impossible. There was no way Kip could kill every single wight attacking Big Jasper. Even Gavin couldn’t have done that!

Kip stopped altogether, watching with growing tightness in his throat.

Each bane was an island unto itself, an eighth the size of Big Jasper. They had surrounded Big Jasper and they covered much of its shoreline, the