The Broken Eye
Page 80

Kip said, “Are you telling me this is what I’ve been missing out on by skipping the ‘Lives of the Saints’ lectures? Murderous warrior-priests who camped out back in Rekton? I climbed on that statue!”
“Way to miss the point, Breaker,” Teia said.
“You have to sit through a lot of lectures to get the good ones,” Quentin admitted. They all laughed a little, and they all knew it was only to cover over what they’d heard. But they were all ready to let it go.
“It’s sort of a ‘Look inward first, but look outward, too’?” Teia asked Quentin. It was an old saying.
“Pretty much—the real quote was Ambrosius Abraxes, ‘Look ye first to thy innermost parts. Search and know them as does Orholam himself, and then may ye turn thy gaze to the deeds of those who persecute thee.’ Some of the saints had a real way with words, others…” He grinned.
Still serious, Cruxer said, “This is who we’re fighting. This wasn’t an individual’s guilt—one bad priest oppressing a community that feared him. It was the entire community, eager to participate in what they knew was evil.”
“There’s no evidence that the Color Prince’s people have done any of this,” Ben-hadad said uncomfortably.
“This is what they want us to go back to!”
“They probably don’t even know about this,” Ben-hadad said. “It’s here, in this library. How would—”
“Are you on their side?” Cruxer asked. “You read it, you tell me if such things don’t go a long way to explaining why the Chromeria sent luxors out into the world.”
The table fell silent. Of all them, Quentin looked worst. “That was a … dark chapter in the Magisterium’s history. We don’t even like to speak of it.”
Teia said, “I’ve heard rumors that some of the High Luxiats themselves have been agitating to give the Office of Doctrine some of their old powers again.”
Quentin shook his head. “Other luxiats have foolishly said such things, yes, but I don’t think it goes that high.”
“They haven’t squashed those rumors, though,” Kip said.
“They’re scared,” Quentin said. “But they’re wiser than scared. We can trust them.”
“I’m sure people thought that the first time the luxors were established,” Ben-hadad said.
“Quentin’s right, though,” Teia said. “They’re right to be scared. Every time we hear about the war, it’s about a loss like at Ruic Neck. Even the victories don’t make sense. A victory at Sitara’s Wells? And then two weeks later a victory at Amitton? Our armies marched backward as fast as they could to reach the next ‘victory’? I think we’re losing everywhere, and they’re lying about it.”
“Enough about the war,” Cruxer said. “I don’t think we should be looking at these books anymore. These volumes were restricted for good reason. I think this knowledge deserves to be lost.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ben-hadad said.
“Look at what I just read,” Cruxer said. “I can’t unlearn that! I didn’t even read you all of it. It’s worse. And I didn’t even finish. What’s wrong with saying that in some cases, other people know best?”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone to know what’s best for me,” Ben-hadad said.
“Then maybe you don’t belong in the Blackguard,” Cruxer snapped, “because that’s what you agree to every time you take an order.”
“Enough!” Kip said. “Cruxer, I’m sorry you had to read that. If you need to stop, stop. But I need to do this.”
“Do you? You don’t even know what you’re looking for.”
It was a sore spot. They’d looked through a mind-numbing number of genealogies: Klytos Blue was, like most nobles, related to nearly everyone, and though they’d found hints of dozens of scandals, none involved Klytos directly. It was getting harder not to conclude that they’d been wasting their time. Kip shot back, “If you can’t handle the horror of what man can do to man, maybe you’re the one who shouldn’t be in the Blackguard.”
The table fell silent.
Cruxer’s ever-warm eyes chilled. “Breaker, we’re going to be part of this war, like it or not. It’s going to kill some of us at this table. And it’s going to change all of us. It doesn’t mean we should be eager for those changes. Most of them aren’t good.”
“These books could give us the edge we need to win,” Kip said.
“The best thing these books can do is to teach us forbidden magic.”
“For defense!” Teia said. “How we can defend against what we don’t even know?”
“Knowledge is a musket. You can use it only as a club, but will you? When your life is on the line? The miracle to me is that the luxiats were able to sequester this knowledge at all. Breaker, when I held Lucia in my arms as she was dying, in that moment, I would have damned myself with any magic known or unknown if it would have meant vengeance on her murderer.”
The faces around the table were somber. The young luxiat looked on the verge of fainting. Delicate sensibilities about damnation, Kip figured.
“There isn’t only the danger to our souls,” Cruxer said. “If we use these … the Color Prince’s drafters will, too.”
“If they can figure it out. They don’t have our books,” Teia said.
“They probably have their own books,” Ben-hadad said.
“But what if they learned it from fighting us,” Cruxer said. “Then they’d think they have to use these magics because we are.”
“They’re probably already working on all this,” Big Leo said. “This stuff is forbidden by us—who they hate and wish to destroy. Let’s be realistic; they’re not going to be held back by beliefs they don’t share.”
“We’re talking about starting an arms race,” Cruxer said.
Teia said, “We’re not starting it; we’re just starting to run before they cross the finish line.”
“The only way out of an arms race is to win,” Ben-hadad said.
“In such victories, all men lose,” Cruxer said.
“Better to lose your idealism than your life,” Kip said.
“You all agree with this?” Cruxer asked.
No one looked excited about it, but there were nods all around. “Maybe we should listen to Kip on this, Captain,” Ferkudi said. “I mean, he is the Li— Ow! What the hell, Teia?!” He rubbed his rib.
She stared at him. Around the table, smirks were being suppressed.
“Oh, right, we weren’t going to talk about the Li …, the li … littlest squad member?” Ferkudi said.
There were groans around the table. Big Leo buried his face in his hands.
“This again?” Kip said. He knew they’d speculated. Everyone wants to live at a pivotal time in history, right? And if you weren’t arrogant enough to delude yourself into thinking you were the Lightbringer, surely the second best thing would be thinking you knew him. “Not all of you, though?”
“Sooo,” Teia said, redirecting. “Yes, Captain, we all agree.”