More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
My job is to sidle up to a choir monk in full flow; slip in through his ear, eye socket, or open mouth; and distract him, insinuating into his mind an irrelevant, mundane thought, sapping his concentration so that he mumbles, lets the stress fall on the wrong syllable, gets a word wrong or in the wrong order, maybe misses out a whole phrase. That, naturally, invalidates the whole prayer—those who live by the letter of the law die by the letter of the law, and you can’t have it both ways—and the soul of some evil rich bastard has a nasty five minutes in the blissful Hereafter, until the next
...more
Something big involving a sleeper, an inside-man job. Ours, needless to say, is not to reason why, but inquiring minds want to know about things, and I have an inquiring mind.
Anyway, wasn’t it Saloninus who said, ‘That which is done out of love is beyond good and evil’?” “He was a mortal,” I point out. “And I’ve always thought it was one of those sayings that sound really good till you stop and try and figure out what it means.”
He smiles bleakly at me. I am one of his people and the sheep of his pasture, but that doesn’t mean I’m not getting on his nerves.
“Your lot was wrong about one thing,” I say. “It’s not the eye of a needle that’s a bitch to go through, it’s the proper channels.
We hand over our deckle-edged swords and handful of remaining arrows to a detachment of Raphael’s Ninth Armored and go quietly, because knowing when to quit is the beginning of wisdom.
“Moron,” I tell him. “You won’t get away with this, and you won’t achieve anything. Nobody will even know. And there’s nothing in the universe of time and space more pathetic than an unnoticed martyr.”
“You,” I say. “Absolutely. Unimpeachable loyalty. Captain of the hosts of heaven, who put down the rebellion and led the traitors in chains. What better inside man could there possibly be?”
“You shouldn’t have killed Brother Eusebius.” “If I hadn’t apologized, you’d never have known.” “True. What’s that got to do with it?” “Nothing.”
“You’re serious, twenty-six phases?” “And that’s just part one. It’s a long game. How long? As long as it takes.”
