Westmark Lies and Deceit Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote #4

"How can you do it?" Theo demanded, as soon as the last of the spectators had gone. "They were heartbroken, those two. It wasn't just foolishness for them. They took it seriously. We told them a pack of lies." (11.26)

Mickle pretended to be a psychic to reassure a couple that their deceased daughter was okay in heaven, and now Theo's disgusted because the audience genuinely believed the act, unlike others in the past which people have taken with a grain of salt. Real deception bothers him.

Quote #5

"You have, I see, bettered your station in life," said Cabbarus. "I believe you formerly went about as a tinker."
"That is correct, sir," the man replied. "It served its purpose. Alderman, though, carries more weight and substance. It conveys, you might say, the aroma of prosperity. It suits well enough at the moment." (18.36-37)

Cabbarus endorses lies. His spies go about in different guises to trick people—like Las Bombas—and gain intelligence. He doesn't question the ethics of this at all, it seems.

Quote #6

The storm broke sooner than Cabbarus hoped. It followed an audience granted to the latest necromancer, a hairless little man in tinted spectacles: a fraud who actually believed in his nonexistent gift and was sincerely dismayed when he could raise no spirits at all. He left the king on the brink of new collapse. (9.5)

Cabbarus, at the king's request, keeps bringing in people who claim to raise the dead. It never works, of course, but Cabby delights in the effect trotting out these frauds has on his master. It's all a scheme to get more power for himself, even though he has other ways to do so.