Lightbringer 03 - The Broken Eye by Weeks Brent

Author:Weeks, Brent [Weeks, Brent]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2014-08-25T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 57

“I’ve figured out something really exciting,” Quentin said. He was standing on the table in the restricted library. His hair was askew, and he had a few days’ growth of scrubby uneven beard. “Unfortunately, it’s trivial and not at all helpful!” He laughed, and it was the ragged sound of someone right on the edge.

Kip said, “Quentin, why are your teeth red? Tell me that isn’t blood.”

“Heh-heh-heh.” His voice pitched up crazily. “Nah, it’s not blood. Khat. You know khat? It’s a stimulant. Never used it until today—uh, three days ago. With kopi and khat and…” He looked down at several bowls below the table.

“Please tell me you haven’t been using the High Luxiats’ flower jars as chamber pots,” Kip said.

“Kip, under a thin veneer of excitement, I think I might be about to collapse.”

“That seems likely,” Kip said. “What did—did you drink the flowers’ water first?”

“I couldn’t drink it second. That would be gross. Plus, there wouldn’t be any room.”

Kip shook his head. He reached up and grabbed Quentin and put the young man down on the floor. He didn’t trust Quentin to jump down without hurting himself. The reedy scholar barely weighed more than Teia.

“Um, thanks?” Quentin said. “And please don’t touch me again. I don’t … I just don’t like being touched. Thanks.”

Kip shrugged. So Quentin was weird. Not any weirder than the rest of them. “So…?”

“The Black Cards and the Lightbringer are connected!”

“That is … exciting. I guess. How?”

“That we don’t know anything about either of them! Ha!”

Kip said, “Not so exciting.”

“I, I, I told you that I figured out the organization scheme, right?”

“That was like three weeks ago.”

“Right, right. I, I found all the references to the Lightbringer—I’ll show you those in, in, presently—and there was a problem with all of them—”

“Problem?” Kip interrupted. “What kind of problem?”

“One moment, one moment! So I had this thought and I went and I found all the books on the Black Cards. I couldn’t find them at first, but then I didn’t look for books on Black Cards—those have all been burned or stolen or what, what have you—so instead I looked for books about all the cards, but written before the Black Cards were declared black, that is, heretical, see?”

“Smart.” Kip wasn’t following, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“And I found the very same thing!”

“Same as what?” Kip asked.

“Same as the Lightbringer mentions!”

“But you didn’t tell—”

“Oh, right, right. Look.” Quentin pointed to a tiny book on the table.

The leaves were so old they were fragile and stained. “What is this?” Kip asked.

“It’s a luxiat’s prayer book. It was stitched into book form rather than a scroll so it could be thumbed through more easily, and fit in a pocket. They made them durable, and with plenty of empty pages at the back for the luxiat to record notes or prayers or dreams from Orholam or prophecies. This one belonged to Darjan himself.”

“The warrior-priest?”

“A leader of the aħdar qassis gwardjan. A green guardian priest.”

“The writing looks funny,” Kip said.

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