Authors: Scott Lynch
Jean/Patience takes the open seat, and reaches out to the other three arch-magi. It’s
as easy as joining flesh-and-blood hands. Archedons and archedamas pool energies,
crafting a joined sigil, an ideogram that fills the room for an instant with the thought-shape
of four names:
-Patience-Providence-
-Foresight-Temperance-
The names are meaningless, traditional, having nothing to do with the personal qualities
of their holders. The fused sigil proclaims the commencement of formal business. The
light in the chamber dims in response; the early-evening sky is replaced by a bowl
of predawn violet with a warm line of tawny gold at the horizon. Archedon Temperance,
seniormost of the four, sends forth:
—We return to the matter of the black contract proposed by Luciano Anatolius of Camorr.—
There is a twist, a wrench in Jean’s perceptions. Patience, the here-and-now Patience,
adjusts her memories, shifts them to a context he can better understand. The thought-voices
of the magi take on the quality of speech.
“We remain divided on whether or not the consequences of this proposal exceed the
allowances of our guiding Mandates—first, the question of self-harm. Second, the question
of common detriment.”
Temperance is a lean man of seventy, with brown skin the texture of wind-whipped tree
bark. His hair is gray, and his clouding eyes are
milky agates in deep, dark sockets. Yet his mind remains vigorous; he has worn five
rings for half his life.
“With respect, Archedon, I would call on the assembly to also consider the question
of higher morality.” This from a pale woman in the first row of seats. Her left arm
is missing, and a fold of robe hangs pinned at that shoulder like a mantle. She stands,
and with her other hand sweeps her hood back, revealing thin blonde hair woven tightly
under a silver mesh cap. This gesture is the privilege of a Speaker, announcing her
intention to take the floor and attempt to influence the current discussion.
Jean knows this woman from Patience’s subtle whispers—
Navigator
, three rings, born on a Vadran trading ship and brought to Karthain as a child. Her
private obsession is the study of the sea, and she is closely identified with Patience’s
allies.
“Speaker,” says Jean/Patience, “you know full well that no proposed contract need
be proven against
anything
broader than our own Mandates.”
Patience gets this out quickly, to create an impression of neutrality that is not
entirely honest and to stress the obvious before someone with a more belligerent outlook
can seize the chance to make a fiercer denunciation.
“Of course,” says Navigator. “I have no desire to challenge the law provided by our
founders in all their formidable sagacity. I am not suggesting that we test the proposed
contract on my terms, but that we have an obligation to test ourselves.”
“Speaker, the distinction is meaningless.” Foresight speaks now, youngest of the arch-magi,
barely forty. She and the Falconer are associates. She is also the most aggressive
of the five-ring magi, her will as hard as Elderglass. “We are divided on questions
of clear and binding law. Why do you muddle this deliberation with nebulous philosophy?”
“The point is hardly nebulous, Archedama. It bears directly upon the first Mandate,
the question of self-harm. The sheer scope of the slaughter this Anatolius proposes
risks some diminishment of ourselves if we agree to it. We are discussing the single
greatest bloodbath in the history of our black contracts.”
“Speaker, you exaggerate,” says Foresight. “Anatolius has been clear concerning his
plans for the nobility of Camorr. Few, if any, would actually be killed.”
“Candidly, Archedama, you surprise me with your dissembling. Surely we are not such
children as to delude ourselves that someone reduced to the state of a living garden
decoration by Wraithstone poisoning has
not
, by any practical measure, been murdered!”
There is a brightening in the artificial sky as the sun peeks above the horizon. Regardless
of the justice of Navigator’s argument, the assembly approves of the manner in which
she’s making it. The ceiling responds to the mental prodding of the magi in attendance.
The sun literally shines on those that capture general approval, and visibly sets
on those that stumble in their arguments.
“Sister Speaker,” says the Falconer, rising calmly and pushing his own hood back.
Jean feels another chill at the uncovering of his familiar features—the receding hairline,
the bright dangerous eyes and easy air of command. “You’ve never been coy about the
fact that you oppose black contracts on general principle, have you?”
Jean draws knowledge from Patience’s whispers. There are about half a dozen Speakers
at any time, popular and forthright magi, chosen by secret ballots. They have no power
to make or contravene laws, but they do have the right to intrude on Sky Chamber discussions
and indirectly represent the interests of their supporters.
“Brother Speaker, I’m not aware of having been coy about anything.”
“What, then, is the full compass of your objection? Is it all higher morality?”
“Wouldn’t that be sufficient? Isn’t the question of whether we might be found wanting
at the weighing of our souls an
adequate
basis for restraint?”
“Is it your only basis?”
“No. I also put forth the question of our dignity! How can we not do it an injury
when we reduce ourselves to paid assassins for the ungifted?”
“Is that not the very credo by which we work?
Incipa veila armatos de
—‘we become instruments,’ ” says the Falconer. “To serve the client’s
design, we make ourselves tools. Sometimes that makes us weapons of murder.”
“Indeed, a murder weapon is a tool. But not all tools are murder weapons.”
“When our prospective clients want us to find lost relatives or summon rain, do we
not take the contracts? Such is the condition of the world, however, that they tend
to want our assistance in matters which are regrettably more
sanguine
.”
“We are not helpless in the choosing of the contracts proposed to—”
“Sister Speaker, your pardon. I interrupt because I fear that we are prolonging this
discussion unnecessarily. Allow me to lay your points to rest, so that we may return
to cutting our previous knot. You say it’s the scope of this particular contract that
earns your strenuous objection. How do you suggest that we scale it down to a more
agreeably moral operation?”
“Scale it down? The whole enterprise is so bloodthirsty and reckless that I can hardly
conceive of how we might mitigate it by sparing a few victims among the crowd.”
“How many would we have to spare for such mitigation as would please you?”
“You know as well as I, Brother Speaker, that this is not a question of simple arithmetic.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve listened to proposals for many black contracts over the years, contracts
involving the removal of individuals, gangs, even families. You might have objected
in principle, but you never made any attempt to have them disallowed.”
“A contract for a single murder, while an undignified thing in itself, is at least
more precise than the wholesale destruction of an entire city-state’s rulers!”
“I see. Can we agree, then, on a point at which ‘precise’ becomes ‘wholesale’? How
many removals tip the balance? Are fifteen corpses moral, but sixteen excessive? Or
seventeen? Or twenty-nine? Surely we must be able to compromise. The low triple digits,
perhaps?”
“You are deliberately reducing my argument past the point of absurdity!”
“Wrong, Sister Speaker. I take your points very seriously. They have been treated
seriously in our laws and customs for centuries! And they have been treated thus:
Incipa veila armatos de!
We become instruments. Instruments do not judge!”
The Falconer spreads his arms. Vestris flaps her wings, hops to his left shoulder,
and settles back into comfortable stillness.
“That has been our way for centuries, precisely because of situations like this.
Precisely
because we are not gods, and we are not wise enough to sift the worthy from the unworthy
before we take action on behalf of our clients!”
Jean has to admire the Falconer’s cheek—appealing to humility in defense of an argument
that magi should be free to slaughter without remorse!
“It is madness to try,” continues the Falconer. “It leads to sophistry and self-righteousness.
Our founders were correct to leave us so few Mandates by which to weigh the proposals
we receive.
Will we harm ourselves?
This we can answer!
Will we harm the wider world
, to the point that our interests may be damaged? This we can answer! But are the
men and women we might remove penitent before the gods? Are they good parents to their
children? Are they sweet-tempered? Do they give alms to beggars, and if so, does this
compel us to stay our hands? How can we possibly begin to answer such questions?
“We make ourselves instruments! Anyone we kill
as
instruments, we deliver to a judgment infinitely wiser than our own. If the removal
be a sin, it weighs upon the client who commands it, not those who act under the bond
of obedience!”
“Well put, Speaker.” Archedama Foresight is unable to suppress a smile; the sun has
risen while the Falconer has made his arguments, and the chamber is flush with a soft
golden glow. “I call to my fellow arch-magi for binding. We have no time for the diversion
of philosophy. The subject of a specific contract divided us this morning. It divides
us now. One way or another, we should end that division, working firmly within the
context of the law.”
“Agreed,” says Temperance. “Binding.”
“Reluctantly agreed,” says Providence. “Binding.”
Jean/Patience feels a warm glow of gratitude. Providence has bent a point of etiquette,
speaking his judgment before that of the more
senior Patience, but in so doing he has confirmed the verdict, three out of four.
Patience, whatever her actual thoughts on the subject, is now free to conceal them
and do a small kindness to Navigator.
“Abstain,” Jean/Patience says.
“Binding,” says Foresight.
“Bound, then,” says Temperance. “All further discussion outside the Mandates is set
aside.”
Navigator pulls her hood up, bows, and sits. The assembly is restored to its previous
stalemate. Providence has refused to sanction the proposed contract, while Foresight
has endorsed it. Temperance and Patience have yet to express their opinions.
“You have more for us, Speaker?” Temperance directs his question at the Falconer,
who remains standing.
“I do,” says the young man, “if I don’t strain your
patience
in continuing.”
Jean is struck by the ambiguity of his insight into this affair. Is it possible to
make puns in thought-speech? Was that the Falconer’s design? Or is Patience, in translation,
highlighting nuances her son didn’t intend? Whatever the truth, none of the arch-magi
take exception.
“I bear no particular love for the people of Camorr. Neither do I bear them any particular
ill-will,” says the Falconer. “The proposed contract is drastic, yes. It will require
deftness and discretion, and the removal of many people. It will have consequences,
but I would argue that none of them are relevant to us.
“Let us look to the first Mandate, the question of self-harm. Do we have any particular
attachment to the current rulers of Camorr? No. Do we have any properties or investments
in the city we can’t protect? No! Do we invite trouble for Karthain by causing upheaval
two thousand miles away? Please … as if our presence here couldn’t protect the interests
of Karthain, even were Camorr two miles down the road!”
“You talk of investments.” Archedon Providence speaks now, a disarmingly mild man
about Patience’s age, a staunch ally of hers. “Anatolius casts a wide net with this
scheme. Any feast at Raven’s Reach will command the presence of the city’s money,
including Meraggio himself. We
do
maintain accounts at his house, and others.”
“I’ve researched them,” says the Falconer. “But do these people
run countinghouses or trade syndicates by themselves? Any one of them will have family,
advisors, lieutenants. Capable and ambitious inheritors. The money in the vaults won’t
go anywhere. The letters of credit won’t vanish. The organizations will continue operating
under new authorities. At least that’s my conclusion. Do you find it to be in error,
Archedon?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Nor I,” says Foresight. “Our few ties to Camorr are secure, our obligations to it
nonexistent. Who can name a single concrete injury we would do ourselves if we accepted
the Anatolius contract?”
The chamber is silent.
“I trust we may consider the first Mandate dispensed with,” says the Falconer. “Let’s
give due airing to the second. What Anatolius proposes—and offers to pay a fair, which
is to say, exorbitant price for—is that we
engineer an opportunity
for him to work his revenge against the nobility of Camorr and against its foremost
criminal family. Now, I am merely being exact. I’m not attempting to disguise the
magnitude of his intentions.
“With our aid, Anatolius will likely succeed, and hundreds of the most powerful men
and women in Camorr will be gentled. Our sister Navigator is correct to point out
the foolishness of dancing around this point. These men and women will never again
have a single meaningful thought. They won’t be able to wipe the filth from their
own asses. Their fate will be tantamount to murder.
“I would certainly not wish that on anyone I knew or cared for, but then, we are here
to consider, as the archedama put it, the concrete injuries of our actions, not to
hone our sympathy for distant persons. We must measure whether the disruption this
would inflict could be so widespread as to compromise our own interests, and our freedom
of action.”