Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [90]
Yet she couldn’t keep out of that chatroom; she still couldn’t make up her mind if it was some kind of trap or if he really was there to help her somehow.
What about these Breakthrough people? What do you know about them? she asked.
You should trust your own instincts.
She sighed. Thanks, Yoda, she typed. She had decided there was no point in holding back with him, because what did she have to lose?
He didn’t respond to that. She wondered if he was some sort of robot program, but even she knew there weren’t any “fake” AIs this sophisticated. And if somebody’d written one, why waste it on her?
So just what am I supposed to do, here? she asked. My friends bailed on me, I don’t have any magic, I don’t know what’s going on—
He actually interrupted her. You are at the center of a war. The beginning of the war was in the time of King Arthur.
There was a long pause; she waited.
The situation is complex. While the followers of Mordred, the ones called the Shadow Knights, are completely in the service of Darkness, blame for the war is not entirely on their side. Partly they chose Darkness, but partly they were driven to it. Partly, Mordred himself was driven to it.
All right, she typed cautiously. So?
So now the past is past. For centuries, Mordred himself was powerless. While some few of the Shadow Knights and Arthur’s folk were reborn, it was only a handful, and the conflicts between them were limited to mere duels. Now Mordred has come into his power again. The Shadow Knights are reborn, awakened to their true nature, and more are being recruited. Only Arthur’s followers, the Grail Knights, can effectively oppose them. The war itself has been reborn, and the time for confrontation is at hand. Yet, if one side does not defeat the other this time, the cycle will continue to be repeated, down the long years.
She was startled. This was—in clearer words—exactly what Elizabeth had told her! And QUERCUS had told her this without any prompting. She felt a cold lump in her stomach and a chill running up her spine. Okay, so he’s saying the same thing. But that doesn’t make it true. Facts, though …
Doctor Ambrosius and the Breakthrough people were talking about a war. There were Shadow Knights, and they’d actually been killing people, or trying to. People had gotten badly hurt at the bonfire. People had been Tithed to the Wild Hunt. And people were missing. Gone? Or—dead? Okay, this explanation sounded crazy, but was there a better one?
Her practical side came to the rescue. Well, plain old regular human greed. There doesn’t have to be a Mordred around for people to be evil. There were wars all over the world for the same reason. This one just happened to involve magic. Which she didn’t have. And she really didn’t want to become “Disposable Extra Number 23.”
So assuming this is true, she typed, what am I supposed to do? I don’t even have any magic! I just want to keep my head down—
He interrupted her again. Ignorance and powerlessness is your greatest defense.
Well, that made no sense at all. QUERCUS was back to cryptic mode. She sighed, gave up, and went to bed.
As for avoiding the others, all she had to do was to change her habits—sit somewhere else at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It helped that all pretense of formal dining had gone right by the wayside; everything was cafeteria-style lines now, and the linens and china had been put away “for the duration.” That might have been the only good thing about the new regime. Everything else—if people had been thinking that having the Breakthrough people more or less in charge was going to make things easier, they must have had a sad awakening.
Oakhurst was now being run like a military academy. The really athletic kids, the ones with warlike Schools and Gifts, had to get up before dawn. The few glimpses she got of Burke made her feel sorry for him, when she could get past the feeling of being betrayed. He really looked haggard. Actually, all of the ones being singled