The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,95

been discussing his death.

“ ‘They’?”

“The sea demons. They’re you. Or what you would be if you only knew how.”

“They’re me? Well, fuck me, then.” He began checking the action of the musket. Twist here and pull? “Can you tell me how to kill them, or not?”

“You know, I thought your problem was a lack of honesty. But your lack of compassion is worse.”

“Compassion? For monsters?”

“They suffer, Dazen. For their broken oaths and cowardice, they have reaped unending centuries of isolation and madness and pain.”

“Glad to see you’re back to being cryptic. Kind of missed it,” Gavin said with a little shake of his head. “But what the hell are you on about?”

Karris, I’m spending my last day with fools and madmen and traitors, and I’m afraid I fit right in.

Orholam said, “They’re what happens when immensely talented and immoral drafters find an animal that’s trusting and easy to soul-cast.”

“They’re what? What?”

“The sea giants were gentle creatures, so deeply attuned to luxin that their very bones react to it, intelligent, and nearly immortal. And they’re now extinct, thanks to your predecessors. What’s a Prism to do to escape his own Blackguards and his mortality itself?”

“Throw himself into a whale? Come on.” Through curiosity or desperation or madness, drafters had will-cast almost every kind of animal—but soul-casting was another level entirely.

“No, no. Whales are far too willful, and too smart to trust men.”

“Nobody’s ever successfully soul-cast themselves,” Gavin said dismissively.

“Depends what you mean by ‘success.’ ”

Thinking you could do magic better than anyone else had ever done it before? That attitude wasn’t exactly uncommon among drafters; it must be nearly ubiquitous among Prisms.

Good thing I’m not like that.

“This can’t be true,” Gavin said. “Of all people, I would know if it were.”

“You? You don’t even know how a Prism is made!”

“Made? You mean ‘chosen.’ ”

“Time’s up,” Orholam said, his eyes perhaps sensing some change in the sea demons that Gavin’s did not. “It was a pleasure to pull the same oar for a time, Man of Guile.”

The old prophet stepped over and spoke to Gunner in hushed tones.

Gunner nodded. “Guile! You sees in lightsies and darksies, yes?”

Black and white? “Yes, Captain,” Gavin said.

“Up ya go. To the next.” He moistened his lips, peeved. “To the next. The nest. Fawk! Maybe you kin see what others cain’t.”

So Gavin slung the gun-sword over his back and began climbing the rigging. He’d regained enough strength for this, anyway.

But he wasn’t even all the way up to the crow’s nest when he saw something alarming.

“The whale!” he cried. “The whale’s turned. It’s headed straight this way!”

Gavin hauled himself into the crow’s nest and flopped in awkwardly.

“Ten points a-port!” Gavin shouted. “Twelve hundred paces out!” He was pretty good at distances, but it was a guess.

Almost as soon as he’d called it, Gunner cut to starboard. It was nice that a whale had been distracting the sea demons. But in the old tales, whales themselves had been the death of many a crew.

On the sea, no stranger is your friend.

And then Gavin saw it. “Gap!” he shouted. “Four hundred paces!”

But it was as if the sea demons themselves could hear his puny cry.

“They’re turning!” Gavin shouted. “A thousand paces out now!”

Below him, Gunner was standing on the barrel of The Compelling Argument again, looking forward, though this time he had the fore skysail stay in his hand to keep his balance. He hopped down, and his hands became a blur on the whirling gears and pulleys. But Gavin could see that the great cannon was aimed wide of any of the sea demons.

“Captain—” he began.

But the roar of The Compelling Argument obliterated all else. The concussion made its own ring on the waves below it, and the sound and pressure knocked even Gavin backward, luckily into the crow’s nest.

He pulled himself to a seated position in time to see a great explosive shell hit the water hundreds of paces to port from the sea demons. Water geysered around the impact.

Most impressive. Gavin would have applauded the sheer power of the thing if there weren’t seven monstrous leviathans bearing down on them at this very—

Four. Four leviathans bearing down on them. What?

“Three of ’em peeled off, Captain!” Gavin shouted. “Headed for where the shell hit!”

That was it. Sea demons felt vibrations in the water. A distant cannon blast above the water was certainly felt, but an explosion in the water must have doubled or trebled its volume to those creatures.

“They’re steaming hot!” Gavin shouted. “Four hundred paces. Our