Politics

“We must not get lost in the woods,” he said. “Lothrian, Cielcin, Extrasolarian . . . ’tis not a question of which enemy we must face, but of how we will face them. We have the means between us, surely, to fight on all fronts.” Sattha Kull turned to look up at Sennen Gorgora and the other Jaddian nobiles. “In the Wisp, we have a saying: Evil anywhere harms good everywhere. We Demarchists have long failed to live up to the meaning of these words. We are a little people, and far away. The war has not come to us, and there are voices in the Althing that say we might escape war entirely, hiding around our remoter stars. I represent those who do not share this belief. The one must work for the good of the many, so the Mux Sae says, but the Lothrians would destroy every one for their many—not realizing the contradiction.” He smiled.

The Mux Sae was the Tavrosi code of laws—those laws common to all their worlds and clans. Valka had but rarely spoken of it, especially after we fled her people after Berenike. The Mux Sae was the Proper Way, Valka had told me. Literally it meant the Left Hand.

Disquiet Gods, Chapter 33: The Emperor's Council