“I know you did. They told me. What is it?”
“There have been statements, Lord Regent,” the Jasuru said. “They began appearing in the city very recently.”
Geder shifted in his chair. “Statements?”
Morn, still kneeling, fumbled at his belt. When he held out his hand, a thick paper was in it, folded in a square. Geder plucked it out and unfolded it. It was sturdy and thicker than the page of a book, the fibers that made it up coarse enough to texture the words inked upon it.
THE SPIDER GODDESS IS A LIE AND HER PRIESTS ARE THE TOOLS OF MADNESS
The scourge of the spider goddess that has touched all the world in recent years is not what it claims to be! The peculiar and insidious powers of those dedicated in the false temples hide their true nature, but now THE TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN! YOU CAN RESIST!
It went on down the page. The spider priests, it said, were not the voice of a suppressed goddess, but a creation of the dragons, like the twelve races of humanity or the eternal jade roads. They had two powers—to sense it when people knowingly spoke an untruth and to convince whoever heard their voices that what they said was true, whether it was or not. The page called the first “the power of the ear” and the second “the power of the mouth,” which seemed like a particularly old-fashioned way to frame the idea. Archaic, even.
For a moment, an old fascination stirred in him. The pale ghost of his old love of speculative essays. What if it were true? What if the dragons had made a tool to sow chaos among their own servant races? How would that fit with all he’d read of the ancient past? Something like excitement sparked in his brain.
“They… began appearing?” Geder said. “What does that mean?”
“All through the city, my lord. They would just… be there. One was pasted to a wall near the port. Another, we found on a table in a common house. In all, we’ve gathered almost a hundred.”
“Are they all like this?” Geder asked.
“No, my lord. There are several versions, and people are copying them. We found a house in the salt quarter where a scribe had started making others with the same text. We questioned him before he was killed, of course, but he didn’t know where the papers had come from. He only made copies out of his own hatred and malice. But I fear he may not be the only one such.”
Geder handed the page to Basrahip, who shook his head. “Dead words on a dead thing, Prince Geder. They are less than nothing.”
“It isn’t true, what it says,” Geder said. “The spider goddess wasn’t made by the dragons.”
“Of course not,” Basrahip said with a warm, rolling chuckle. “She is the truth itself, and her enemies are the servants of lies. It is why they must use this emptiest form of words to defy her.” The priest sobered. “What is written is in no voice. Ink on a page means no more than a bird’s scratches on bark. You know this as well as any man.”
For a moment, Geder remembered another letter. The one Cithrin had written him from Suddapal. The one he had humiliated himself over. Bird scratches on bark indeed. Was this letter hers as well? It seemed likely.
It was the kind of thing she’d do. The kind of thing she’d done. Hiding behind phrases. Pretending things were true that weren’t. With a growl, he threw the Jasuru’s page into the fire grate. The flames dimmed for a moment, then brightened as the words turned to smoke.
“You did well by bringing this,” Geder said through clenched teeth. “And by killing the scribe.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Go back. Make patrols. Anyone who has one of these, take to the gaol. The priests can question them. Anyone who’s making them or passing them on is guilty of treason against the Severed Throne. As the Lord Regent, and in the name of Prince Aster, I authorize you to question them and execute them in whatever manner you think would be most likely to keep anyone else from following in their path. Torturing a few people to death in the public square’s better than being gentle and letting them get away with… with this.”
“Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”
“And if you find how they got here? Who’s writing them? I’ll get you your own weight in gold.”
The Jasuru’s eyes went wide. Geder regretted the words as soon as he’d said them. It was too extravagant a promise, but taking it back now would be embarrassing. He was stuck with it. He had to be more careful about that.
“I will turn the city out like a pocket, Lord Palliako,” Morn said. “I will pull every man, woman, and child in the salt quarter into the sea if I have to. No one will escape.”
“Good,” Geder said. “Do that.”
After the man had left, Geder turned back to the fire. The last remnants of the page floated over the coals, grey and fragile. He felt his scowl as an ache at the corners of his mouth.
“I thought after we stopped the apostate, everything would get better. That it would be over.”
“Everything is getting better, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said. “The world of lies is failing before us. All this that you see is only the curling back of the corrupt world. There is no cause for mourning.”
The darkness of Geder’s mood didn’t ease, but a layer of shame overlaid it. Basrahip was right, of course. Things were going well. They’d beaten the apostate. There was no reason that he should feel so dispirited. That he did left him with the creeping suspicion that he was the problem.
“Doesn’t matter,” Geder said, forcing a grim smile. “We’ll march ahead all the same. Back to Camnipol and Prince Aster and all the rest of it.”
“We shall,” Basrahip said. “Bring yourself, Prince Geder. The feast in your honor is to begin.”
“Of course. Of course.”
“Your work has been long and noble and hard,” Basrahip said. “Your sacrifices are deeper than those around you know. All this that troubles you? It is only the passing of a cloud across the face of the sun. Come eat and drink. Let those who love you surround you. All will be well.”
Put that way, the feast actually sounded worth sitting through. Geder hauled himself up and bowed to the priest. “I’m sorry. You’re right. A little food will certainly do me some good. Let’s go to it.”
The great hall was filled with the members of the court and their families. The heat of their bodies filled the room. The scent of pork and mint, stewed plums and cinnamon, fresh bread and sweet butter caught Geder’s attention at least. Lanterns of worked crystal glowed along the walls. Men and women both wore the overlarge black leather cloaks that he himself had made popular what seemed like a lifetime before. A group of Dartinae acrobats amused the crowd; lithe thin bodies capering impossibly in the air, eyes aglow. A Southling cunning man conjured fire out of the air for a time, his massive black eyes seeming to recoil from the light. A Cinnae girl with a silver slave chain around her neck sang second-empire love songs in a voice as rich and warm as a viol, and bright and clear as a flute. Geder waited for it all to salve him, but the most it managed was to distract.
It wasn’t until Basrahip stood before them all on a raised dais, his palms out to the crowd commanding silence, and gave a speech honoring Geder as Lord Regent and chosen of the goddess that he started to feel a little better.
Geder Palliako had been drawn across the Keshet, called for the righteousness of his soul. He had brought the Righteous Servant out of the desert and into the noble houses for her glory. No man in all of history had done as he had done. It was like being reminded of something he’d almost forgotten. Yes, that was right. He had led the empire to glory. That was true. He had been entrusted by the dying King Simeon to care for and raise Aster. That was true too.
By the end of the speech, Geder actually felt a little better about himself and all he’d done. Even the slaughter in the swamp seemed to have taken on a patina of grand adventure. If he went to bed afterward more nearly at peace, the rest, he told himself, would pass with the morning. It was only that he needed to recover from his struggles.