The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) Read Online Free PDF

course,” Basrahip said, as he always did. The correction would never take.
    “Is everything all right?” Aster said.
    “Yes, fine,” Geder said. “But I need to borrow Basrahip for a time. Before the feast starts.”
    “Of course, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said with a bow. When Geder rolled his eyes, Aster chuckled.
    Geder and Basrahip walked together down the long hallways. Here, in the heart of the holdfast, the ceilings rose up higher than four men one atop the other, and a clever series of holes admitted the falling sunlight without letting the warmth of the braziers escape. The color of the light was enough to tell Geder that the winter night would be on them soon. Servants and guards went before and came behind, creating a mobile privacy for him and Basrahip.
    “That can’t be right, can it?” Geder said.
    Basrahip raised querying eyebrows.
    “The three-year fire,” Geder explained. “A fire that went on that long would have left a layer of ash all over the world. And there are cities that stood where they are now since before the dragons fell.”
    “If it must be, it must be,” Basrahip said. “But the fire years are truth.”
    “But there are forests in Northcoast that have trees older than that. Not many, maybe, but I read an essay about how you can tell the age of a tree by the number of rings, and it said the largest of the redwoods in Northcoast—”
    Basrahip shook his bull-wide head.
    “You put too much faith in empty words. No forests live that were not planted after the fire years. All animals that live were sheltered by humanity in the fire years. If you say that the world must be built upon ash, then look for it, and you will find it. Or if you do not, you must find for yourself what became of it. But the fire is true.”
    “It’s just in all the histories I’ve read—even the ones written within a generation or two of the fall—no one’s ever mentioned a catastrophe like that. You’d think they would have. I mean, the utter destruction of everything’s not the sort of thing I’d leave out if I were writing a history.”
    Basrahip waved the words away with a massive palm.
    “Words on paper are not even lies. They are empty. The voice that speaks them is your own, and you mean nothing when you say them except that here on this page are these words. It the least important thing that there is. From the time before the dragons, my priesthood have been the keepers of truth. All truth. You know that no one can lie to the goddess.”
    “Well, yes,” Geder said, feeling abashed. “Of course I know that. I mean, you’ve proved it over and over, haven’t you?”
    “And you know that her truth cannot be long denied.”
    “I’ve seen that too,” Geder agreed.
    “With every generation, the priests of the goddess have passed on the true tale of the world in voices that cannot be denied to acolytes who would hear any falsehood. What are your books and scroll to this? The living voice has carried what I say across the ages. Your library was all created by a hand, not a voice. Tell me this. Will you say all books are true?”
    “Well, no. Of course not. There are some essays I’ve read that were clearly—”
    “And would you say that you can know perfectly which are true and which not?”
    “No, but that doesn’t mean they’re useless. I mean, most of them, you can assume are—”
    Basrahip stopped, took Geder by the shoulders, and looked deeply into his eyes.
    “I ask you this, Prince Geder. If I gave you a meal that you knew was poisoned in part, and also you knew that you could not know where the poison lay, would it be wisdom to eat?”
    “Of course not,” Geder said.
    “So it is with books,” Basrahip said. “Listen to my voice, my friend. The goddess is there, and she will not lead you astray.”
    N amen Flor looked like a reed. His thin body rose up from his feet to a tall, broad face and hair the color of wheat that he wore close-cropped. He stood as Geder entered