The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,128

wonderful addition to the team, but his arrogance about it—even if it was earned—sometimes piqued resentment.

“Not even you, commander?” Ben asked.

Cruxer was standing with arms folded, patiently waiting for the punchline. “You’re the resident genius, Ben. I’m sure you’re going to give us something worthwhile, but there’s really no need for me to duplicate your work, is there? So speed it up, huh? I’ve got nunks who need training.”

“The branches grow naturally,” Kip said, “but the smaller branches and leaves are only allowed in certain quadrants. By design, surely. A trade-off between not blocking the mirror’s signals and allowing the tree to get enough light to stay alive, right?”

“Almost!” Ben-hadad said. “I mean, yes, as far as it goes. See here?” He pointed to a plaque mounted on a rock near the trunk. “I can’t read the words, but I was able to figure out that these symbols are numbers. They’re coordinates, and once I realized that, I was able to take a known—the Great Mirror at Ru, actually, and—”

Cruxer cleared his throat.

“Right,” Ben-hadad said. “Not important. But it was pretty ingenious how I—”

“I’m sure it was,” Kip said quickly.

Ben-hadad got the point. Kip could see him mentally skipping ahead, with some reluctance.

“Anyway, these coordinates are ancient cities: and the leaves on this tree don’t grow in the line of sight between them! These smaller numbers are towns and lookouts within Blood Forest. So by cross-referencing, we can find those places now. Maybe some have mirrors still. We can build our scouting web.”

“That is great news,” Kip said. But it doesn’t really merit gathering all the Mighty, does it? “Great work.”

“That’s it?” Winsen asked, unimpressed.

“That’s not enough?” Ben-hadad asked. He looked from face to face.

“I hate to side with Winsen on anything,” Tisis said, throwing him a wink. He beamed. Oddly, he’d started becoming a big fan of Tisis recently, and she’d decided to cement that, if only because he was such an asshole if he didn’t like you. She went on—“But I kind of expected more of a man of your towering intellect, Ben-hadad.”

Kip looked at her. Siding with Winsen but then still giving a backhanded compliment to his perennial antagonist? Nicely done!

“And you’d be right to do so,” Ben-hadad said triumphantly. “Because I calculated the angles the mirror would have to move to in order to send or receive signals from every one of these coordinates.”

“When did you do this?” Cruxer asked.

“While Kip was chatting with the Keeper and we were all just standing around.”

He’d done all this . . . in his head. Holy shit, Ben. If I get you killed, all of history is gonna hate me.

“Almost there,” Ben-hadad said. “None of these coordinates require an angle of less than minus five degrees. Look at where the leaves aren’t!”

“Huh?” Big Leo asked. “I’m still kind of reeling from all the trap stuff Breaker just told us. Can you pretend I’m dumber than you know I really am?”

Ferkudi said, “He means the mirror can point down. The tree has been grown specifically so the mirror can aim much lower than that.”

Kip cracked his neck to one side, thinking. “But the tree’s ancient. What if this is just an accident of its growth? Like, they had to prune it or whatever, and because of that some branches grew lower because they cut off all the higher branches?”

“I thought about that, and by—well, it doesn’t matter how—I figured out it wasn’t that. Any of you see the empty iron frames on Greenwall?” Ben-hadad asked.

“To hold burning pitch or whatever?” Kip asked.

“I sent servants looking in the old storerooms, and do you know what they found?”

“I know you’re going to tell us,” Cruxer said sternly. “And quickly.”

“Mirrors,” Ben-hadad said. “The Great Mirror can aim down, but in each sector there are branches growing that, if you pointed the mirror down, would get in the way. Those branches would cast big shadows.”

“Okay . . .” Ferkudi said.

“The mirrors on the wall are mounted precisely so they can reflect the Great Mirror’s light into those places that would otherwise be in shadow. Guys, every ancient city that could afford one built a Great Mirror. The scholars have always thought it was pure cultural dick-waving, you know, look how rich and important we are. Now we know they enabled communication—eventually—but not everyone would’ve had chi drafters. They’ve always been rare, and short-lived, and the ancient cities were hostile to drafters not of their kingdom’s color. Yet they insisted on building the Greater and