by Brent Weeks
Kip raised an eyebrow. What a strange young man. But Quentin was deadly serious. Kip supposed that those who became luxiats had to be a bit peculiar by definition, though.
“Very well,” Kip said, feeling like he should react with some sort of sufficiently sober pronouncement, but he had nothing. “These texts here. What are they?”
“I can look through each and tell you what each one is. Is that what you’re looking for?” Quentin asked, puzzled.
“No, no. Some younger luxiats-to-be were tasked with bringing those books here, and I want to know why. Brother Anir said they’d been repaired? Is that true?”
Quentin went through the books and scrolls and scowled. “I am loath to accuse anyone of falsehood, but… the condition of these books is not consistent with books coming up from the binderies. Mistress Takama would never let this work pass. Some of these haven’t been repaired in decades. Nor do all of the books need repair, so this is not consistent with either going to or coming from the binderies.”
“Then what are they?” Kip asked.
“I don’t know.”
But there was something in how he stressed that. “Are you going to be honest, or only technically honest?” Kip asked.
Quentin hesitated. “You’re right. I… I’ll have to pray about how reflexively I cover the truth where my peers are concerned. I should have said, ‘I don’t know, but I can speculate.’ And as I’m sure you’ll next ask what said speculation would be…” He blew out a breath. “These are books from the other restricted libraries.”
“So?” Kip asked.
The rest of the squad had come over. Kip introduced them, and Quentin seemed to get more and more shy, but after introductions, Kip pressed him again. “So?”
“So there are different permissions needed for the various libraries: you may get access to some libraries but not to others. This library is restricted at the highest level. I’ve actually never been here.”
“Oh, sneaky,” Ben-hadad said, shaking his head, understanding.
“What?” Ferkudi asked.
“I hate to say it, but I’m with Ferkudi on this,” Cruxer said.
“Promachos Guile opened almost all the restricted libraries so that the forbidden magics could be studied—for defensive purposes only,” Ben-hadad said.
“The Magisterium was not pleased,” Quentin said.
“So the luxiats have been moving books out of the newly opened libraries into the libraries that are still closed,” Ben-hadad said.
“It’s not technically disobedience,” Quentin said. “I mean, the promachos’s order was that the libraries be opened, not that all the books in those libraries should be open for study.”
“That’s basically bullshit,” Kip said.
“Yes,” Quentin admitted. “You have to understand, though, it’s been a hard season for the luxiats. Half a dozen of the most respected scholars among us were made laughingstocks when it was discovered that the bane actually exist. Having the privilege of being the only ones allowed to study these forbidden materials stripped from us has been hard—and made harder when sometimes common drafters and Blackguards with no training have made discoveries we missed for many years. It’s been a gushing well of humiliation.”
“You’re going to be in big trouble for talking to us, aren’t you?” Cruxer asked.
“Oh yes.”
“Well, you’re in it now. Might be time to make new friends,” Ferkudi said. He grinned a big friendly grin and threw a meaty arm around Quentin’s slim shoulders.
Quentin smiled uncertainly.
Chapter 38
For a city where light never dies, Big Jasper had a lot of dark places. And the Order seemed to know them all.
City and sky seemed to have conspired to bring darkness. Teia hunched her shoulders, determined not to be frightened. The moon had been strangled by dark clouds whose fingers thickened as they flexed and that celestial mirror expired. Fog billowed in off the water, hit the walls like an army in a suicide charge, and rolled right over them. For a few moments, Teia could see the fog massed above the walls, and then it came crashing down into the streets.
As it swamped her, blotting out sight, she heard a scream in a nearby street. No, not a scream. Just a cat, yowling in fury. Then it stopped.
The cobbles of the street were slickened with the damp. Teia saw a star bobbing along above her, and it took her imagination moments to calm and realize it was nothing more than a watchman’s lantern. He passed directly above her on the wall, and he never even saw her. Teia brushed one hand along the wall, telling herself it wasn’t for reassurance.
You’re going to your death, the lantern seemed to whisper as it floated away into the distance. Find light!
I’m a slave, not a—
She stopped the thought. She wasn’t a slave. She could leave at any time. She had money in her pocket. She had money in the barracks. She could buy a commission and go home. She could go and… what?
But she could figure it out. She’d have time. She’d have her family. She’d—
Fear makes you stupid. Look at what I’ve got here. Look at what I’ve done. Who back home would believe that I’d even spoken to the White, much less been given an assignment vital to all of the Seven Satrapies by her? Who would believe that I trained with Commander Ironfist, much less led him in an assault on the fortress of Ruic Head? Hell, with my color, who will even believe I’m a drafter?
Out in the wide world, what use is paryl? I can kill people secretly? Oh, lovely. Get lots of chances to use that in polite society. I can see through clothing? Oh, perfect, please tell me how well endowed Lord Fuddykins is! Ha.
You’re not a slave anymore, Teia. So who are you going to be?
The Order isn’t going to kill me. If they’d wanted to do that, they would have already done it. Right? But what if they changed their minds? If they wanted to kill her in the future, it wouldn’t be that hard for them to find her, would it? Or her family.
Teia had to lean against the wall for a moment as her throat constricted. The darkness and fog were oppressive, heavy, clinging to her, making it hard to breathe, diving into her throat, invading her body. Her eyes widened and widened and she felt the tingle of paryl entering her.
Drafted it when I was scared. That’s progress, right?
A lantern of the stuff bloomed on her fist and pierced the darkness in every direction. It cut through the haze as if it weren’t even there and lent an odd metallic quality to the stones and the cobbles. She thought she heard something, and she looked behind her. Nothing.
When she turned around again, a hooded, cloaked man stood in front of her. Murder Sharp. He looked pleased with himself, or perhaps pleased to see her. “Good color there. Tight spectrum, almost no bleed. You’ve got a knack. With paryls, we have to take what we get. Walk with me.”
“You look different,” Teia said. The last time she’d seen him, he’d had a fringe of orange hair around a bald scalp. Apparently it had been a ruse, because he wasn’t bald. Now his hair had grown out, though it was still cropped short. It made him look quite a bit younger. He was growing out a beard, the scruff nicely delineated.
“I have the curse of being readily identifiable. I have to work harder for my disguises. I envy your bland prettiness.”
“Thanks?”
“It was a compliment. Do you have any idea how valuable it is to have a description of you be ‘slender, medium to dark skin, medium height, maybe a little on the short side, dark hair, fairly pretty’? Any distinguishing marks people will remember can be removable ones, like a beauty mark, or a wig—and with your skin tone, you can as easily seem to be a natural when wearing a wig of wavy dark blonde hair or black Parian curls. Being remembered or being forgotten is life and death in my work, so yes, I envy you. Here we are.”
He knocked an odd, syncopated beat on the door.
Great, I’m going to have to become a drummer on top of everything else.
The door opened, and with the
light pouring out into the street, Teia constricted her eyes and let the paryl go.
Whoever had opened the door retreated back through another room beyond the entry. Murder Sharp handed her a white robe to put over her clothes. “Don’t identify yourself in any way. The others will be put in danger the more they know. Hearing your voice will be bad enough.” He gave her dark spectacles, too, and a white cloth veil. He dressed himself similarly, except he donned a mask with real white fur and yellow teeth, some snarling creature that looked like a cross between a weasel and a bear. Then he led her into the next room.
The building was a smithy. Lanterns provided cheery light and invaded the darkness outside. There were a dozen figures inside, chatting quietly. But all were cloaked and veiled. Only a few wore the weasel-bear masks. The veils were simple flaps of white cloth, hanging from each person’s hat, leaving only their eyes revealed. Some of the veiled figures wore dark spectacles. Those must be drafters, making sure that no one would be able to recognize them by the luxin patterns in their eyes.
Of course, the disguises meant nothing to a paryl drafter. If Teia tried, she could see through their clothes, through their masks, through their silliness. She went from terrified to on the verge of derisive laughter in a second.
Fine, so maybe it was hysterical laughter she was on the verge of. Easy there, Teia. She followed Master Sharp into the smithy and looked from one figure to another in the red light of the forge fire.
“Order,” a man with a gruff voice said.
Order, as in come to order? or like, Hey, you all from the Order, come to order? Teia almost laughed again. Whoa, hold it together, T.
She tried to clear her throat, failed, and didn’t dare try clear it again for fear of disturbing the newborn silence.
Though he was short, the others clearly deferred to the gruff one—and he was the only one who had two veils on. The one he wore under the white cloth veil appeared to be made of some kind of finely woven metal mail.
“If the Chromeria or its people find you here, or hear of it henceforth, you will be taken by the Office of Doctrine. You will be tortured. Your lands and titles will be seized. Your families will be punished. Your animals and houses will be burned, as if heresy could be purged with fire.” He paused. “If you have not the courage to die in silence, go now, and be part of this company no more. The door stands there.”
The idea of being tortured by the very people she was serving was ice in Teia’s stomach. Would the White claim her, if she were captured?
Only if it served her ends. And in such a war, claiming Teia might not be the White’s best move. Every threat Teia heard was real. And that was if she were found by her friends. How much worse would it be if she were discovered by the Order? She looked at the door, and wondered if they meant it. Could she leave now?
“We’ve no cowards among us,” the man said. “Good.”
Teia wanted to shout, Wait! I think I might be a coward! Can I think on it a bit longer?
But it was too late.
The members made a circle around the room, broken only on the side where the forge burned hot. Odd, at night. In the center stood a simple table. Teia felt a chill as she recognized the items piled there. They were all the things she had stolen for Aglaia Crassos—perfect blackmail materials to expose and ruin her, had she not already confessed all of it to the White.
“Hear the sermon of the first circle.”
“Hear, ye deceived,” the figures rumbled, as if invoking prayer.
“Everything you know about the Chromeria is lies,” the gruff man said.
“Hear, ye deceived,” the figures rumbled.
“Gavin and Dazen Guile ruined the world for their lust and pride. But out of the conflagration, out of the hundreds of thousands dead, some good came. Those of us who sided with Dazen Guile saw our hopes die when Gavin Guile came stumbling out of the smoke at Sundered Rock. The wiser of us ran. Most hid. But some were pursued by the vengeful, by murderers seeking to use the cover of war to hide their crimes, by assassins sent to silence us for what we knew.”
He stopped, and said nothing for a long time, as if reliving a memory. None of the others interjected, so Teia didn’t move either.
“In our flight, many were lost. Good men, women who’d committed no crime but to lose. Others were dragged off into slavery, sold to the Ilytians in a trade the Chromeria condemned but did nothing to stop.”
“Hear, ye deceived.”
“But.” He raised a finger. “In every darkness, there is hope for light. For light cannot be chained.”
“Light cannot be chained,” they intoned with him.
“A small group of us fled into the Atashian desert, across the Cracked Lands, pursued for more than a month into the wastes, until our pursuers gave up and we found ourselves without enough water to make the trip back home. So we pressed on. We found the Great Rift the day after we’d drank the last of our water. We climbed down it, losing two more brothers in the hike. And at the bottom, we found an ancient, abandoned city, carved into the faces of the cliffs themselves. We found great cisterns of water, renewed by a small stream, and we found wild goats to eat, and we found luxin the likes of which we couldn’t believe, but most precious of all, we found truth.”
“Hear, ye deceived.”
“We were not the first wanderers to find this place. This was Braxos. A city thousands of years old. The pygmies of the darkest Blood Forest claim a common ancestry with the Braxians. We found the remains of a small, later community there—a scholar and his student, later his wife. They had come looking for the city, and had nearly died as we had, but two hundred years before. They stayed two years, tried to go home back to the Chromeria, and gave up and returned, certain the Cracked Lands were impassable. They stayed for the rest of their lives, had children. The community lasted three generations before it succumbed to the inbreeding that left them too feeble to survive those harsh lands.
“But what they did in those generations! They translated skins a thousand years old, and preserved them in script we could read. For the first time, we heard about the time before Lucidonius.” He looked at Teia, as if searching her soul. “It is time for you to hear the truth, and to decide.”
“Hear the truth, ye deceived.”
“The Braxians always lived a tenuous existence there, though the lands then were not yet the Cracked Lands. It was, still, a desert, and life was hard. In those times, it was believed that each color was a god or goddess, and men clung to one or another. Drafters could never serve two colors because each was at war with each, or at best antipathic. Drafters flowed to those parts of the world where their color could be found, and in so doing, made the differences more profound. The fertile plains of Ruthgar gave plentiful green, so the world’s greens left their own peoples and moved there, and the greens built their temple there, and fertilized the plains year after year, making them greener still. The Red Cliffs of Atash, likewise; the volcanoes of deep Tyrea, likewise. And so on.
“The Braxians had a different belief. To them, magic wasn’t primarily about light; light was a trigger, the conduit for allowing your will to flow into the world, and into your community. Nor did they believe—as the Chromeria later would—that Will is finite. They didn’t think they were using up their souls to make golems. They believed that Will is a muscle, and it is strengthened with every use, not depleted like sands from an hourglass.
“As gods rose and fell, all the nine kingdoms groaned under the weight of their struggles. When the reds gathered under Dagnu the Thirteenth’s banner and went to war and wiped out the blues to the last child, they threw off the balance. For a generation, with no blues drafting, red ran amok, deserts spread, the lands cracked, the seas choked. Droughts spread everywhere, and the Braxians among them all were most vulnerable. Their brother tribes in the desert perished. It was no better when the blues had their revenge, two generations later: the waters rose and flooded the floors of the canyons. So much water it flushed the good soil awa
y. The Braxians decided they must come up with some power that would give them a say in events in a world that ignored them, and crushed them in their wars, all unknowing. For our part, may—”
“—we listen and believe,” the figures joined in with him.
Teia got the sense that the exact words of the stories varied, but there were trigger phrases for their responses. It made the flesh on her neck crawl.
“This was the birth of the Order. First, there was only one: Ora’lem, the Hidden, the first Shadow. He wore a cloak which had been infused with the entire will of a polychromatic lightsplitter, a woman who had the talent that the Chromeria deceitfully swears is only known to Prisms. But Ora’lem was killed when he faced a sub-red—for his cloak only hid him from the visible spectrum. After his death, his cloak was recovered only with great difficulty, and the Order decided that Shadows should always work in a team of man and woman, for there are places shut to men and places shut to women, and the strengths of each should cover the weaknesses of the other. Over the generations, the Order amassed fourteen cloaks, some finer than others. Two, now lost, which had been owned by the mist walkers of old, worked in all spectra.
“Those fourteen warriors, the first Shadows, moved unseen among all peoples of the world. Fourteen righteous blades that brought justice. Fourteen mist walkers protected the people of Braxos, and the vulnerable everywhere. They traveled among every kind of drafter, and whispered in the ears of those whose power threatened the balance, telling them to desist. It worked, some few times. But most often, it did not, and the fourteen brought death to a few to sustain life for the many.”
Balancing, as a Prism did, but by force. By murder.
“Braxos flowered, and knew greater prosperity than ever. The very word that the Braxians wished the reds to calm their use of magic meant the reds did, controlling their own priests, without need for death. There was peace, and magic flourished. When others couldn’t help and wights were terrorizing an area, it was the Shimmercloaks who intervened. The Order were the stern guardians of a harsh world.
