The Burning White (74 page)

Quentin flashed a quick, apologetic grin. “Sure, sure, if we are to call lazy the one who created the Ur, the Primes, and all the Thousand Worlds—not a heretical notion, by the by, despite what certain scholars . . . never mind. If we’re to call lazy He who spread the stars with His cloak and blows the winds between them, who forms every beating heart and mountain and lake upon them, and is creating yet every life and love and every chick within each egg, bursting out into the light . . . if we’re to do that, then I’m not sure the word ‘lazy’ has a stable definition. But certainly, we could conceive of Orholam as being so vast, so omnipotent, so intelligent that He could direct every moment of every man’s and every woman’s and every child’s and every dog’s day. He could do so, and the picture created thus would be flawless, and every head in the cosmos would nod as one that it was flawless, for they could not do otherwise than nod in unison. For in their perfection, they must recognize His perfection. They must bow and bob at His every command. They wouldn’t need commands, for they would be but extensions of His fingers. Such creatures would be capable of everything except freedom, and therefore, everything except love. And for some reason, Orholam values love—not just of Him but our love toward others, toward even ourselves. The master takes joy when the apprentice grows in her mastery, when she sees the line for herself the first time, when her hand can finally paint what her heart conceives, and when she partakes of the beauty for the first time and the five hundredth.”

“Murdered slaves and dead babies part of that beauty?” Teia asked bitterly.

Quentin folded his hands. “Part of the beauty? No. But part of the canvas. A wag asks from the secret bitterness of his heart, ‘So then, is this the best of all possible worlds?’ If Orholam is watching, and Orholam is acting, is this the best He can do? Because the best He can do appears to be shit.”

Teia was still a bit surprised to hear Quentin use such language.

Quentin grinned, glad to have shocked her. “What? He made shit, too.”

She grinned momentarily, but the ache didn’t abate.

Quentin said, “There was a master who loved his slave, so he freed him immediately. Another master loved his slave, so he wrote into his will that the slave should be freed after he himself died. Which of these loved his slave?”

“The one who freed him.”

“I agree!” Quentin said, “But the master who kept his slave would object that what he did was for the slave’s own good: a free life is a dangerous one, the free man might end up destitute! The master would guarantee a good life for him, meaningful work, and protection—until he passed away and could guarantee it no longer.”

“He’s lying,” Teia said. “Though maybe to himself first. It’s none of the master’s business what happens to that slave.”

“But so long as the slave belongs to him, it literally
is
his business,” Quentin said.

Teia blinked. “Well, sure,
financially
, but . . . but the master can’t call it love, then. He’s just making sure no one destroys his investment, the way a free man might destroy himself. The first master is assuming the financial loss in giving the slave his freedom. He’s not investing in property; he’s investing in a man. And not for his own enrichment but for the former slave’s.”

“What happens,” Quentin asked, “if that freedman recognizes his master’s love and continues working in his house, though now as a free man?”

“Everybody wins, I guess?” Teia said. “The master knows his former slave cares about him, and the former slave gets a fair wage and dignity and the ability to leave if things change.”

“But the same work gets done?”

“I daresay that
more
work gets done in the good master’s house. Slaves have ways of letting their will be felt.”

“And yet you ask that Orholam be the kind of master who keeps His slaves as slaves forever and calls it love.”

Quentin smiled, and she felt like she’d fallen into the kindliest trap ever. Despite Quentin’s gentle demeanor, Teia felt like she’d been slapped.

“What? No.” Teia shook her head. “Look, I hear you. But that doesn’t close the gap for me. Sure, blame war on men. There’s evil in my own heart. I fight it all the time. But . . . floods and cancer and famines? Why would there have to be those for us to have freedom? Why would that be the consequence of our evil choices? I don’t get it. If Orholam made the whole system, He should have made it . . . I dunno. Better.”

Quentin said, “There are those who claim that as men’s rejection of Orholam’s will for us has corrupted our very nature, so, too, those elohim who rebelled have corrupted the natural world. But I don’t know. Personally, I think the proper response to those who’ve suffered a tragedy is not to teach them but to grieve with them. I’ve asked many times, and angrily, would it have upset some vast eternal plan if my father hadn’t had a seizure and drowned while bathing me in the river when I was four years old? Why did our dog Red pull me out but not go back that time for my father, whom he’d saved from his fits before?”

And suddenly, Quentin was too overcome with emotion to speak.

It seemed to surprise him even more than it did her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. “I haven’t told that story.”

Teia got the idea that he meant ever, that he’d never told that story to anyone.

He dashed tears from his eyes and tried to smile to smooth it over. “I guess I can choose to be angry at that dog, or angry at Orholam for that day, or at Orholam for my father having the falling sickness in the first place. Or I can be grateful that He made dogs to love us and that Red saved my father from the fire and the waves four times before that day so that I might even be born, and I can be grateful that that beautiful animal saved me that day.

“In the face of life’s black mysteries, answers feel barren. All I know is that I can only choose my attitude. The mysteries aren’t thereby untangled, but when I choose gratitude, I see life flower. When I paint as if my art has meaning, not just for today but also for eternity, it doesn’t make the aches go away, but I’ve come to trust that my master will use my pain for a purpose.”

She saw the beauty in that way of seeing things. But it looked so far away from her vantage. She said, “You’ve got a lot of faith.” But then, that’s why you’re a luxiat, she thought.

“No. I had a profoundly diseased set of beliefs—so diseased they led me to murdering a girl—and now I have a pretty finely attuned sense for what diseased beliefs look like. And the truth is, you don’t need finely attuned senses to see them. You can judge a faith by the fruit it bears. When you see someone bitter with the world, ask yourself what they believe.”

“And does that apply to me?” she asked. She was going for irony, but she was afraid her own words were pure bitterness.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“Adrasteia, I believe you walk attended by the servants of the Most Holy. This is His work, His war, and He will not abandon you in your need. When you choose to do the task for which the maker made you, when you know yourself free, but you come back to the master’s house to work anyway, you can excel in ways that others could never imagine. And you
are
excelling, even if you don’t see it.”

“I guess me excelling means nobody sees me, right? Especially the immortals. Well, at least the one.”

She’d told Quentin about her dream about Abaddon. He’d blanched with fear but hadn’t been very helpful in giving her anything solid about the creature. Too many contradictory claims in the texts, he said, many of them probably planted by the evil one himself.

“Be strong and of good courage, Adrasteia. We live in a world of earthquakes and landslides and floods, but we live in a world of eucatastrophes, too.”

“I don’t know what that even means.”

“It means whether brought on by men or malevolent spirits, we live in a world where hell invades earth from time to time, with devastating consequences, far worse than anything we could imagine. But . . . but—almost always, so far as I can tell, at the hand of men and women of goodwill—
sometimes
heaven invades earth, too.”

“You’re a man of faith after all,” she said.

“Maybe I am,” he said, but sadly, for she saw his recognition that she was using the title to push him away.

“I feel so alone, Quentin.”

“I wish I could be a better bridge for you,” he said.

“These men I’ve been sent to k—”

“Those men are fools.”

“What? They’re the most capable spies I could even imagine. They’ve thrived in the shadow of the Chromeria itself.”

“Fools.”

“Have you not listened to my reports?” she asked.

“Cunning, perhaps, but fools. When we think the darkness hides our deeds from the Lord of Light, we are children who clap our hands over our eyes and shout that we’re invisible. You are seen, Teia. Even in your cloak. You are known.” He grinned, and it was scary to see the fierceness of judgment on his kind face as his voice lowered. “And, in the end, so are they.”

She almost shivered, but she couldn’t let it go. “Quentin, I need to tell you what I’m doing and where I’m going.”

“No, you don’t. Just in case I’m caught. I’m not terribly brave, and I’d soon fold under torture. You’ve said you’re coming to the end. I believe you. I feel it, too. Adrasteia, you serve not just Karris, not just the Chromeria, but the Lord of Light Himself. You will know what must be done, and you will have the unique strength to do it.”

She reached to her neck by old instinct. The vial was gone, long gone. “I hope you’re right,” she said. She grabbed one of Quentin’s sheets of parchment and scribbled a quick note. “Take this to Karris.”

“You know you shouldn’t trust anything about them to writing.”

“It’s not about the Order,” she said. “It’s about you.”

“What?”

“I don’t know that we’ll see each other again, Quentin. Ever. Karris promised me that if I did this, she’d give me anything.”

He looked down at the note. “You’ve . . . you’ve asked that she free me?” His voice wavered, and he glanced up, profoundly humbled. “Why . . . why wouldn’t you ask that they look for your father?”

Teia twisted her lips briefly. “If Karris is who I think she is, she’ll do that anyway. Might as well get two requests for the price of one, eh?”

He snorted, but the sorrow didn’t leave his eyes.

“Fare thee well, Quentin. You’ve been a most excellent friend to me.”

He lifted a hand before she turned away.

“Adrasteia, before you go . . . may I hug you?”

She hesitated. His overture spooled out like a coil of rope over a chasm, thin as spidersilk, but also perhaps as strong. “I think . . . I think I would like that.”

It wasn’t magic. A hug didn’t fix everything. Perhaps it didn’t fix anything at all. But it did feel good.

Really, really good.

She might have cried then, finally. Maybe just a little.

Kip had approached docking his armada at the Chromeria as if it were a military assault. His little army was his pry bar, and a pry bar is good for nothing if you can’t wedge it into place.

So he hid most of his ships beyond the horizon, low and mastless as they were, and came in with Ben-hadad, Cruxer, and Tisis on skimmers, all of them dressed in blacks nearly identical to Blackguard garb.

The docks had been transformed in the time the Mighty had been gone: expanded to deal with the crush of refugees and the ships necessary to supply them from all over the satrapies, but also with additional fortifications. There were towers, more ballistae, and the walls themselves were taller and likely thicker, too.

They did all seem to be staffed by Andross Guile’s Lightguard, though, making Kip almost hope some small violence was necessary.

He and the first wave broke up, seeking out the harbormaster and her apprentices and besieging them by any means necessary: Cruxer charming the woman with his good looks, Ben-hadad faking a medical emergency, Kip with a thousand questions, and Tisis distracting half a dozen journeymen herself with charm and cleavage, having changed into her finest silks and a giant hat that blocked the view of the men and women disembarking behind her. Meanwhile, other skimmers docked in a steady drip, drip, drip.

A few of the men who’d left Daragh the Coward to join Kip had been thieves (a really long time ago, before they’d totally, completely, utterly changed, sir!). Skilled ones, too, they bragged. He’d directed these to go deep into the crowds immediately, waiting on spotters who looked for any messengers sent toward the Chromeria. It was a slender hope, of course, with so many people jamming the docks.

Kip accepted an interruption by one of his new Mighty with the journeyman he was arguing with and headed for the Chromeria himself. Within two blocks, Ferkudi, Cruxer, and Winsen fell in with him.

Clearly, someone was awake, though, doubtless alarmed at the burgeoning number of unknown ships in their harbor, because Kip saw several messengers running from the Chromeria toward the docks. He even heard one waylaid by a barking dog. Apparently the Cwn y Wawr had landed successfully.

By now Tisis should be halfway to her safe house in a defensible mansion in a Ruthgari neighborhood. If Kip were arrested, she had to be safe. She would direct the army.

The streets of Big Jasper felt different than they had a year ago. Not only were they twice as crowded, dirtier, and more hostile, but they also felt smaller and more scared. What had seemed to Kip to be the center of the world, snug and smug in its towering superiority, was now a too-tall cairn, stone stacked on stone, wondering if the wind would blow it down.

They made it unimpeded all the way to the Lily’s Stem and crossed that luxin bridge onto Little Jasper. An honor guard of Ruthgari soldiers in green fell in behind them—Eirene Malargos’s ambassador’s doing, no doubt. So Tisis’s skimmer-sent letters had reached him.

Then they were joined by four of the Ruthgari Satrapah Ptolos’s own guard. Actually, Kip wasn’t even sure if Ruthgar was still led by Satrapah Ptolos these days. There had been rumblings that Eirene Malargos was considering taking over personally in this time of crisis instead of ruling from behind.