The Burning White (50 page)

Sometimes, the close examination revealed much more than the speaker had actually intended. Some auditarae became famous for their insight, and some of these (Karris had learned from Orea Pullawr) were recruited as spies.

“There are magics deeper than chromaturgy, and truths dangerous to tell. There are truths about the Chromeria and about the world that we have held from you. But hard truths buried in the soil of a lust for power become poisonous secrets. We’ve enforced ignorance, and allowed conjecture. We—your leaders, the Spectrum, and the High Magisterium—have nodded along, as incorrect suppositions hardened into tradition and tradition aged into doctrine. We told ourselves that the risk was too great. We asked: what was worse, a small body of lies, or letting dangerous powers free into the hands of any madman who might use them to harm the most vulnerable, or to harm us? If people learned the truth and rejected what we had done, we would surely lose power—and we thought that none could use power so well as we could. We told ourselves the lie that we were indispensable, that Orholam couldn’t work without us, and thus we couldn’t possibly let ourselves look bad.

“So we lied. Tell me, when has Orholam been a liar? Then how dare we lie for Him? How dare we say we do His work when we deceive our friends, and disciples, and flocks?” She laid a folio open flat on the podium. “This comes from the pen of the White Justinia Brook, two hundred and twelve years ago, in an address solely to the Whites who would follow her, like me: ‘We have successfully, it seems, destroyed all knowledge of how to craft black luxin. This is a victory so profound that it cannot be overstated, nor likely ever understood, simply because of the nature of the victory. In the coming years it will be your duty, my fellow Whites, to relegate black luxin to myth. Of course, we’ve not stamped out the knowledge from the oral storytelling cultures, but even those sources may be attacked and marginalized, even carefully corrupted. Let no books be written anew from their memories, and knowledge of the black may die out entirely. This, perforce, also means knowledge of white luxin will shrink. We have crafted as many of the Knives of Surrender as has been practical. I need not tell you how you must value each of these! If we lose them all, we will no longer be able to make Prisms, nor indeed, fight the
elohim
when they return.’ ”

The lecture hall had gone dead quiet. Everyone knew what they were hearing was dangerous. Everyone expected some adult to come along and stop it. But not a one of these young scholars wanted to leave. Prayerfully handpicked by Quentin, these were the intellectual cream of the luxiats. They lived to learn, and longed to teach.

She went on. “Then this comes from the White Orea Pullawr, my dear mentor, writing not quite two decades ago: ‘Orholam save us. Black luxin has been rediscovered. Dazen Guile has drafted so much of it he nearly split the world at the Tyrean battlefield called Sundered Rock. I’d known black luxin could have some effect on memory. This drafting obliterated everything that happened in the entire battle from the memories of men within many leagues. All of them are, even now, reconstructing their own versions of the battle to explain the gaps in their memory, believing they’ve lost nothing. I’ve spread official accounts already, but with the loss of the Blinding Knife—the last of the old Knives of Surrender—I fear an apocalypse is upon us. I fear that the old gods are loosed upon us in judgment of our many sins. We know black luxin once more. We cannot survive unless we also rediscover white.’ ”

The hall was deathly silent. Some even of the young auditarae had forgotten to write down her words, mouths hanging open. Jens Galden was rooted to place. Even from this distance, the whites of his eyes showed round against his deep-olive skin.

“I am your White,” Karris said. “And though you are not entitled to every truth from me, I will not lie to you. In white there is no room for darkness. White may become tainted—I shall fail—but when I do, I shall not hide the stain. I shall expose the truth, no matter how painful, and pay the penalty. This is what I pledge to do, because this is what the Chromeria should do. We are not called to perfection; we are called to correction. When we slip from the path, we will return to it. When we offend, we beg pardon and pay restitution. We do not call the crooked straight. Our courage is the courage to stand in the light, and to learn to love it.

“In this room, with this company, you may ask me any question you wish without fear of reprisal—and, auditarae, without attribution of the name of the questioner, thank you?”

The auditarae shared looks, and nodded, some vigorously, immediately, while others seemed more torn, but finally assented. She waited until they all agreed.

She said, “Now ask, and I will answer you.”

No one spoke for a few moments. She saw some of them glancing at the older luxiat, who looked like he was halfway to wanting to know all the answers himself, but was more scandalized by Karris’s betrayal of tradition.

“The gods!” someone yelled, not standing up, not asking to be rec-ognized by her first, and not wanting to be recognized by Jens Galden. “Tell us about the elohim!”

Among the luxiats, there was a lot of debate about the gods. If they were purely fictitious or real; and if real, what was their nature, their connection to luxins, and to the old worship. Despite the pagans’ rebellion, it was still a taboo subject, for the Magisterium feared even speaking of the gods might seduce the simpleminded to worship them once more.

Fertility cults? Orgies? Surely the simple would rush to their damnation at the mere rumor.

Of course, the appearance of Nabiros during Pheronike’s execution on Orholam’s Glare had made many luxiats ignore the old taboo. What were they to make of that? Had it been mass hysteria? An orange hex delusion? Could it have been
real
?

“The old gods are real,” Karris said bluntly. “At least two hundred immortal powers are spread out amid the Thousand Worlds, though maybe that number refers only to the greatly powerful among them. Whatever their number, they are united in wishing nothing more than to kill and destroy and corrupt what Orholam has made, for He was their king, and they hate Him. In these last years of peace, our world has been either temporarily overlooked or barred from their direct influence. As we’ve seen, that peace has come to an end. I believe we may see more of these elohim, ere the end of this war.”

“Stop!” Jens Galden shouted. “What are you doing? Why! You’ll ruin us!”

And there you’ve done it, she thought. You probably didn’t even know half of this yourself, and yet in the minds of these young luxiats, you’ve just confirmed it all.

Karris didn’t raise her voice. She spoke as she would have spoken to the Blackguards at a mission briefing. “We are at war. We need unity if we’re to fight. If the Magisterium cannot be united in light and in truth, how can the Seven Satrapies have any hope? The light of Orholam’s Glare revealed the truth to us. Go now, and quickly,” she told him. “I’m sure you have reports to make.”

And so he rushed from the hall, nearly weeping.

But the door had barely clanged shut when a young woman asked, “Is there no hope, then? We stand against gods.”

“Hope? Of course there is hope!” Karris said, “For know this—these gods can be banished from our world. The Whites of old believe that the nature of the old ‘gods’—Anat, Dagnu, Molokh, Belphegor, Atirat, Mot, and Ferrilux—has confused us because it’s always meant two different things. The ancients would have easily picked up what was meant by context. As powers of the air and sky, the elohim can make themselves physical only for short times. Perhaps only minutes or hours, but certainly not months or years. So when they hunger for the pleasures of the flesh—as we sons and daughters of the earth hunger to fly—they must partner with mortals to do it: usually a drafter of great ability, often a high priest or priestess of their religion. Thus, both the mortal and immortal would get the power and adoration they crave, and the limitations of embodiment wouldn’t be so irksome for the immortal.

“Together, mortal and immortal could live for ages, though it was always the immortal who ruled. But in this union, they are made vulnerable—as Nabiros was. These fell immortals enter the body through the eyes, and so do they leave through them, if they may, as their host dies or is killed. This is why our ancestors blinded enemy priests and drafters, not through cruelty—or not through cruelty alone—but to trap the immortals in a form where they could then be banished from our world forever. We can even, the Whites of old believed, banish an immortal from
all
the Thousand Worlds, if we kill one with a Blinding Knife. This, I believe, is why we’ve had our long peace. Lucidonius gave us a gift of drafting colors more freely than ever, but he or his circle also gave us the ability to threaten the very elohim. The foul elohim who’d so long ruled here as gods decided to hunt less dangerous quarry on other worlds—until the time was ripe, until the Knives and the knowledge of their making could be lost. No doubt they had a hand in such losses, coming here and briefly risking embodiment in order to someday win their long war. But regardless of what they orchestrated beyond our knowing, we can know this: they believe that the time for their vengeance is now.”

This was greeted with stunned quiet. It had taken her time and many readings to comprehend it all herself, and longer to distill it so, knowing her words would be written down and must convey all she’d learned concisely and clearly.

These luxiats were not, she knew, ones whom anyone else would have chosen to use to pass on such earth-shattering news. But that they were young and idealistic and of humble estate, and holding forbidden and vital knowledge, was exactly what would make them unstoppable.

At least if they hurried and got out of here before the High Magisters arrived to stop them.

“What are we supposed to do?” they asked. “We’re nobodies.”

“That is a damned lie!” she shouted instantly, and the whole room flinched at the suddenness of her hard, hot anger. “
You
are Orholam’s Thousand Stars. Stretch your hands high, reaching into the last light of the waning sun. Bring light where there is darkness. Those who love the light will flock to it, and those who hate the light will reveal themselves by their fear and hatred of you. Bring unity to these realms. Give new heart to the oppressed, and hope to the despairing. Starting with yourselves. Don’t cower like Magister Galden. Stand tall. You scholars, search your books fearlessly and find if what I’ve said here is true. Or disprove it if you can, I pray you. Learn what I haven’t learned. Find any lost knowledge that may help us. You auditarae, spread word of all this. If you believe what I’ve told you, then join me in the fight. If any can be found who will join this war, who will aid us, bring them here. We need people of courage. We need to reinspire drafters who’ve lost faith and run away. We need fighters. We need white luxin. We need at least one of those lost Knives.

“I will meet with you again,” she said, “if I survive so long. There are those who will wish to silence me. I will, again, answer your questions truly if I can. But I don’t wish you to be caught here with me, in case the worst comes to pass. There is, as yet, no record of your names. Magister Galden will remember some of you, no doubt, but I would rather only have endangered some than let all fall into shadow while I have yet life and light. So now go, by various doors and various ways, and take the light with you. Guard it well.”

They scattered, and none of the High Magisters came, so Karris’s plan had worked. So far.

She was being honest now and blameless, but earlier today each of the High Magisters had found themselves called upon to answer honest needs in far parts of Big Jasper. Being honest and blameless didn’t mean she had to be without cunning.

After all, she was still Karris Guile.

It’s amazing, the things your mind will do when you have to stay awake for many hours with a slim but distinct possibility of suddenly needing to kill someone.

Certain boredom, with a chance of murder.

Blinking, crouching in this dark corner, shaking her limbs periodically to keep them from cramping, Teia was not, she finally had to admit, a ghost.

She could not pass through walls. For one thing, she had muscles that wanted to cramp—oh, and she had a bladder, albeit a tiny one (thanks for nothing, Orholam). She also wasn’t dead. Yet. (Though it seemed she was trying to change that with alarming frequency.) Really, the only way she
was
like a ghost was that she was not something any rational adult would fear.

That’s a great pep talk there, T. Your army of one has a shitty commander.

Oh yeah? Well, that’s a
much
better pep talk.

Bollocks. Good point. Snottily made, but correct.

Good to see I can at least win an argument with myself.

Doesn’t that also mean you just
lost
an argument with yourself?

Glass half-full. And shut up.

She stared at the slum building’s door impatiently. Orholam’s balls, would you finish up in there already?

Teia had never gotten close enough to identify the Blackguards at the back dock who’d attended the Old Man of the Desert, but she’d
thought
one of them had a hitch to his step, a slight limp on the left side. He’d also been tall, and most likely (having been brought to the back dock to make sure that Teia didn’t simply head back inside) a sub-red drafter.

How many tall sub-reds had a bit of a limp in the Blackguard?

Unfortunately, the answer was
not
‘only one.’ The constantly training warrior-drafters of the Blackguard accumulated injuries like misers hoard gold, and a slight limp didn’t necessarily denote a permanent injury.

But there was a Blackguard who fit the bill so perfectly Teia hoped it was him. Old guy, nearly forty, had a hitch in his step that showed up only when he was tired. Sub-red/red bichrome named Halfcock. Teia didn’t know how he’d gotten the name—an Archer had told her once not to ask, and Teia hadn’t been curious enough to follow the obvious lead. He was infamous for being an asshole, though, especially to Archers.