Veiled Read Free Page A

Anne asked.
    â€œIn Arabic?” I said dryly. “No.” The papers had notes scribbled across them in a right-to-left scrawl. It could bebattle plans, shipping manifestos, a history of Richard’s dealings with the group . . . or someone’s laundry list, for all we knew. But there was a reason we’d picked the things up: three of the pages were rubbings, not writings. They were crude and it was hard to figure out where they’d been taken from, but if I’d had to guess, I’d have said that the pictures and text they showed looked old. More like carvings.
    â€œAre they from what was in those crates?” Luna asked.
    â€œOr from something else,” I said. “We’re going to need a translator.” Who not only spoke whichever dialect of Arabic this was written in, but also knew enough about Middle Eastern magical history to be able to identify the content. This wasn’t going to be quick.
    â€œAre you going to go back if Talisid asks?” Anne asked. Despite her spell, she didn’t look tired. Life magic healing tends to drain the caster, but Anne’s very good at what she does.
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œWhat’s up with Talisid, anyway?” Luna asked. “When we did jobs for him before, this kind of thing didn’t . . .”
    â€œWell, it’s because of what Morden’s doing, isn’t it?” Variam said. “Talisid wants us to dig up some dirt.”
    Luna frowned. “I thought the Council didn’t buy that Morden’s working for Richard.”
    â€œThey don’t,” Variam said. “They’ve got him down as ‘potential associate’ and that’s it. If Talisid could prove that Richard’s behind him, though . . .”
    â€œI think you’re right,” I said. “Talisid still won’t tell me exactly who he works for, but I’m pretty sure he’s with the Guardian faction. And Richard’s reputation still carries. If they could link Richard with Morden it’d scare a lot of people off.”
    â€œYeah, well, he hasn’t done much of a job of it so far, has he?” Variam said. “And doesn’t sound like his faction’s winning.”
    â€œMm,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
    Politics in the Light Council are complicated. There are seven primary factions: Guardians, Crusaders, Isolationists, Directors, Centrists, Weissians, and the Unity Bloc. They’recloser to social cliques than to the political parties of Westminster or Congress, but the stakes are just as high and the consequences for mistakes are a lot more deadly.
    Most of the issues the Council argue over are transient, changing from month to month. But there are some questions that don’t go away, and one of the biggest is the issue of how to treat Dark mages. At one extreme are the Crusaders: they’re the most militant of all the factions and think the Light Council should be actively fighting against Dark mages, going to war if necessary. They hate Dark mages and anyone who’s associated with them, including me. Which is ironic, given that my feelings towards Dark mages aren’t any more positive than theirs, but the Crusaders don’t care. As far as they’re concerned, if you were trained by a Dark mage, you don’t get any second chances.
    Less extreme than the Crusaders are the Guardians. Like the Crusaders, they’re opposed to Dark mages, but their philosophy is basically defensive rather than aggressive. While the Crusaders want to go out and take the fight to the Dark mages, the Guardians just want to hold things together. They’d rather do the minimum to prevent Dark mages from hurting other people, then leave them to fight among themselves (something Dark mages tend to do quite enthusiastically). And opposing both the Guardians and the Crusaders is the Unity Bloc. The Unitarians want the Light and Dark