Read Online The Queen of Lies by Michael J. Bode - Free Book Online

to kill him.
    “What the fuck? It’s me, Maddox!”
    Turnbull waved his arm, and the scorched remains of the floating volumes scattered into ash. His expression soured. “You’re telling the truth…or at least you think you are.”
    The Veritas Seal was one almost all the faculty had attained and one of the more lucrative services provided by the Lyceum. A licensed Veritas notary could make very decent money, although the seal came with a hefty drawback. It was constantly active.
    “First Tertius, and now you’re trying to kill me too. When have you two ever agreed on anything?” Maddox demanded. He was still ready for a fight. Magus Turnbull had five seals to Maddox’s one, but the Seal of Movement was versatile enough on its own in a fight. It didn’t really help to detect lies or have an eidetic memory when shit was getting thrown at you.
    Turnbull lowered his hands cautiously. “I have good reason. You were, as of this morning, dead from an apparent suicide that shattered your head open like an overripe melon. I don’t need to explain to you the profoundly disturbing implications of seeing you parade your pasty buttocks around the hallowed halls of our institution. For all I knew, you were a revenant or a prank from one of the necromancers.”
    “I was dead?” Maddox echoed.
    “Quite.” Turnbull sniffed. “I saw your broken body and your lifeless eyes, and had it been anyone else, I might have been moved to tears. But murder is a line too far—even in your case—and Tertius’s actions will need to be answered for in front of the full faculty. Get some clothes on and meet us in the drawing room in twenty minutes.”
    “I came back from the dead.”
    “Yes,” Turnbull said with a heavy sigh. “Twenty minutes.”
    Maddox shook his head. “Wait—you’re calling a faculty meeting in twenty minutes?”
    Turnbull rolled his eyes. “Twenty minutes is how long it’ll take you to run to your room, get dressed, and hurry back to the drawing room. Everyone else is already there. Magus Tertius died in his sleep last night, and we need to elect a new dean.”

E IGHT
Twin Shields
H EATH AND S WORD
    I MAGINE YOU HAVE a beautiful gown only to discover every lady at the ball is wearing the same thing. Suddenly it’s no longer beautiful. The stitching hasn’t changed; the emerald satin remains the highest quality; the playful pearl embroidery about the décolletage continues to shimmer in its intricate dance with the candlelight…but what was intended to catch the eye now has become lost in a sea of monotony.
    Such it is also with the Patrean face. His bone structure—the square jaw, the straight nose, the determined brow—such a man should be stunning. The woman is nearly his equal with her raven hair and soft, earthy features. Yet those faces are worn by every guard in Thelassus, every soldier in the Red Army, and in the armies of all the lesser nations. The eye grows familiar and learns to disdain it, just as a man cannot feast on whale sausage and plum wine for every meal and still enjoy it.
    Whatever ancient magician crafted such features clearly had an eye for beauty, but I’m always puzzled—why the one face? Could they not all be made handsome or beautiful in different ways? Beauty and rarity are intertwined. I’m often asked which is more important. There is no answer to this question, but I always say if one is presented with the choice, always be unique.
    —MESSER PISCLATET, ROYAL STYLIST TO PRINCESS SIREEN OF THRYCEA
     
    T HE ENTRANCE TO the Twin Shields Longhouse was straddled by a painting of a warrior woman holding two bucklers at chest level to cover her tits. They’d mounted real shields with long points in the center to drive home the subtle meaning of the image. Depicted behind her was a phalanx of oiled men wearing loincloths and holding spears with tips shaped like dicks.
    “This is my kind of place!” Sword pumped his fist as he swaggered up to the entrance. “Your