Oh, right. The girl. They continued down the steps and eventually entered the palace kitchens. Lunch had ended, though that didn’t stop Lhan from snatching a plate of fried bread, Herdazian style, from the counter as they passed. Plenty was laid out for the queen’s favorites, who might find themselves peckish at any time. Being a proper sycophant could work up an appetite.
“Trying to lure me with exotic foods?” Pai asked. “For the past five years, I have eaten only a bowl of boiled tallew for each meal, with a piece of fruit on special occasions. This will not tempt me.”
Lhan stopped in place. “You’re not serious, are you?”
She nodded.
“What is wrong with you?”
She blushed. “I am of the Devotary of Denial. I wished to experience separation from the physical needs of my—”
“This is worse than I thought,” Lhan said, taking her by the hand and pulling her through the kitchens. Near the back, they found the door leading out to the service yard, where supplies were delivered and refuse taken away. There, shaded from the rain by an awning, they found piles of uneaten food.
Pai gasped. “Such waste! You bring me here to convince me not to make a storm? You are doing quite the opposite!”
“There used to be an ardent who took all of this and distributed it to the poor,” Lhan said. “She died a few years back. Since then, the others have made some effort to take care of it. Not much, but some. The food does get taken away eventually, usually dumped into the square to be picked through by beggars. It’s mostly rotten by then.”
Storms. He could almost feel the heat of her anger.
“Now,” Lhan said, “if there were an ardent among us whose only hunger was to do good, think how much she could accomplish. Why, she could feed hundreds just from what is wasted.”
Pai eyed the piles of rotting fruit, the sacks of open grain, now ruined in the rain.
“Now,” Lhan said, “let us contemplate the opposite. If some ardent tried to take away that which we have . . . well, what might happen to her?”
“Is that a threat?” she asked softly. “I do not fear physical harm.”
“Storms,” Lhan said. “You think we’d— Girl, I have someone else put my slippers on for me in the morning. Don’t be dense. We’re not going to hurt you. Too much work.” He shivered. “You’d get sent away, quickly and quietly.”
“I do not fear that either.”
“I doubt you fear anything,” Lhan said, “except maybe having a little fun. But what good would it do anyone if you were sent away? Our lives wouldn’t change, the queen would remain the same, and that food out there would still spoil. But if you stay, you can do good. Who knows, maybe your example will help all of us reform, eh?”
He patted her on the shoulder. “Think about it for a few minutes. I want to go finish my bread.” He wandered off, checking over his shoulder a few times. Pai settled down beside the heaps of rotting food and stared at them. She didn’t seem bothered by the ripe odor.
Lhan watched her from inside until he got bored. When he got back from his afternoon massage, she was still there. He ate dinner in the kitchen, which wasn’t terribly luxurious. The girl was entirely too interested in those heaps of garbage.
Finally, as evening fell, he ambled back to her.
“Don’t you even wonder?” she asked, staring at those piles of refuse, rain pattering just beyond. “Don’t you stop to think about the cost of your gluttony?”
“Cost?” he asked. “I told you nobody starves because we—”
“I don’t mean the monetary cost,” she whispered. “I mean the spiritual cost. To you, to those around you. Everything’s wrong.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” he said, settling down.
“It is. Lhan, it’s bigger than the queen, and her wasteful feasts. It wasn’t much better before that, with King Gavilar’s hunts and the wars, princedom against princedom. The people hear of the glory of the battle on the Shattered Plains, of the riches there, but none of it ever materializes here.
“Does anyone among the Alethi elite care about the Almighty anymore? Sure, they curse by his name. Sure, they talk about the Heralds, burn glyphwards. But what do they do? Do they change their lives? Do they listen to the Arguments? Do they transform, recasting their souls into something greater, something better?”
“They have Callings,” Lhan said, fidgeting with his fingers. Digiting, then? “The devotaries help.”
She shook her head. “Why don’t we hear from Him, Lhan? The Heralds said we defeated the Voidbringers, that Aharietiam was the great victory for mankind. But shouldn’t He have sent them to speak with us, to counsel us? Why didn’t they come during the Hierocracy and denounce us? If what the Church had been doing was so evil, where was the word of the Almighty against it?”
“I . . . Surely you’re not suggesting we return to that?” He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at his neck and head. This conversation was getting worse and worse.
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” she whispered. “Only that something is wrong. All of this is just so very wrong.” She looked to him, then climbed to her feet. “I have accepted your proposal.”
“You have?”
“I will not leave Kholinar,” she said. “I will stay here and do what good I can.”
“You won’t get the other ardents into trouble?”
“My problem is not with the ardents,” she said, offering a hand to help him to his feet. “I will simply try to be a good example for all to follow.”
“Well, then. That seems like a fine choice.”
She walked off, and he dabbed his head. She hadn’t promised, not exactly. He wasn’t certain how worried he should be about that.
Turned out, he should have been very worried.
The next morning, he stumbled into the People’s Hall—a large, open building in the shadow of the palace where the king or queen addressed the concerns of the masses. A murmuring crowd of horrified ardents stood just inside the perimeter.
Lhan had already heard, but he had to see for himself. He forced his way to the front. Pai knelt on the floor here, head bowed. She’d painted all night, apparently, writing glyphs on the floor by spherelight. Nobody had noticed. The place was usually locked up tight when not in use, and she’d started working well after everyone was either asleep or drunk.
Ten large glyphs, written directly on the stone of the floor running up to the dais with the king’s Common Throne. The glyphs listed the ten foolish attributes, as represented by the ten fools. Beside each glyph was a written paragraph in women’s script explaining how the queen exemplified each of the fools.
Lhan read with horror. This . . . this didn’t just chastise. It was a condemnation of the entire government, of the lighteyes, and of the Throne itself!
Pai was executed the very next morning.
The riots started that evening.
That voice deep within Eshonai still screamed. Even when she didn’t attune the old Rhythm of Peace. She kept herself busy to quiet it, walking the perfectly circular plateau just outside of Narak, the one where her soldiers often practiced.
Her people had become something old, yet something new. Something powerful. They stood in lines on this plateau, humming to Fury. She divided them by combat experience. A new form would not a soldier make; many of these had been workers all their lives.
They would have a part to play. They would bring about something grand.
“The Alethi will come,” Venli said, strolling at Eshonai’s side and absently bringing energy to her fingers and letting it play between two of them. Venli smiled often while wearing this new form. Otherwise, it didn’t seem to have changed her at all.
Eshonai knew that she herself had changed. But Venli . . . Venli acted the same.
Something felt wrong about that.
“The agent who sent this report is certain of it,” Venli continued. “Your visit to the Blackthorn seems to have encouraged them to action, and the huma
ns intend to strike toward Narak in force. Of course, this could still turn into a disaster.”
“No,” Eshonai said. “No. It is perfect.”
Venli looked to her, stopping on the rock field. “We need no more training. We should act, right now, to bring a highstorm.”
“We will do it when the humans near,” Eshonai said.
“Why? Let us do it tonight.”
“Foolishness,” Eshonai said. “This is a tool to use in battle. If we produce an unexpected storm now, the Alethi won’t come, and we won’t win this war. We must wait.”
Venli seemed thoughtful. Finally, she smiled, then nodded.
“What do you know that you aren’t telling me?” Eshonai demanded, taking her sister by the shoulder.
Venli smiled more broadly. “I’m simply persuaded. We must wait. The storm will blow the wrong way, after all. Or is it all other storms that have blown the wrong way, and this one will be the first to blow the right way?”
The wrong way? “How do you know? About the direction?”
“The songs.”
The songs. But . . . they said nothing about . . .
Something deep within Eshonai nudged her to move on. “If that is true,” she said, “we’ll have to wait until the humans are practically on top of us to catch them in it.”
“Then that is what we do,” Venli said. “I will set to the teaching. Our weapon will be ready.”
She spoke to the Rhythm of Craving, a rhythm like the old Rhythm of Anticipation, but more violent.
Venli walked away, joined by her once-mate and many of her scholars. They seemed comfortable in these forms. Too comfortable. They couldn’t have held these forms before . . . could they?
Eshonai shoved down the screams and went to prepare another battalion of new soldiers. She had always hated being a general. How ironic, then, that she would be recorded in their songs as the warleader who had finally crushed the Alethi.
Taravangian, king of Kharbranth, awoke to stiff muscles and an ache in his back. He didn’t feel stupid. That was a good sign.
He sat up with a groan. Those aches were perpetual now, and his best healers could only shake their heads and promise him that he was fit for his age. Fit. His joints cracked like logs on the fire and he couldn’t stand quickly, lest he lose his balance and topple to the floor. To age truly was to suffer the ultimate treason, that of one’s body against oneself.
He sat up in his cot. Water lapped quietly against the hull of his cabin, and the air smelled of salt. He heard shouts in the near distance, however. The ship had arrived on schedule. Excellent.
As he settled himself, one servant approached with a table and another with a warm, wet cloth for wiping his eyes and hands. Behind them waited the King’s Testers. How long had it been since Taravangian had been alone, truly alone? Not since before the aches had come upon him.
Maben knocked on the open door, bearing his morning meal on a tray, stewed and spiced grain mush. It was supposed to be good for his constitution. Tasted like dishwater. Bland dishwater. Maben stepped forward to set out the meal, but Mrall—a Thaylen man in a black leather cuirass who wore both his head and eyebrows shaved—stopped her with a hand to the arm.
“Tests first,” Mrall said.
Taravangian looked up, meeting the large man’s gaze. Mrall could loom over a mountain and intimidate the wind itself. Everyone assumed he was Taravangian’s head bodyguard. The truth was more disturbing.
Mrall was the one who got to decide whether Taravangian would spend the day as king or as a prisoner.
“Surely you can let him eat first!” Maben said.
“This is an important day,” Mrall said, voice low. “I would know the result of the testing.”
“But—”
“It is his right to demand this, Maben,” Taravangian said. “Let us be on with it.”
Mrall stepped back, and the testers approached, a group of three stormwardens in deliberately esoteric robes and caps. They presented a series of pages covered in figures and glyphs. They were today’s variation on a sequence of increasingly challenging mathematical problems devised by Taravangian himself on one of his better days.
He picked up his pen with hesitant fingers. He did not feel stupid, but he rarely did. Only on the worst of days did he immediately recognize the difference. On those days, his mind was thick as tar, and he felt like a prisoner in his own mind, aware that something was profoundly wrong.
Today wasn’t one of those, fortunately. He wasn’t a complete idiot. At worst, he’d just be very stupid.
He set to his task, solving what mathematical problems he could. It took the better part of an hour, but during the process, he was able to gauge his capacity. As he had suspected, he was not terribly smart—but he was not stupid, either. Today . . . he was average.
That would do.
He turned over the problems to the stormwardens, who consulted in low voices. They turned to Mrall. “He is fit to serve,” one proclaimed. “He may not offer binding commentary on the Diagram, but he may interact outside of supervision. He may change government policy so long as there is a three-day delay before the changes take effect, and he may also freely pass judgment in trials.”
Mrall nodded, looking to Taravangian. “Do you accept this assessment and these restrictions, Your Majesty?”
“I do.”
Mrall nodded, then stepped back, allowing Maben to set out Taravangian’s morning meal.
The trio of stormwardens tucked away the papers he’d filled out, then they retreated to their own cabins. The testing was an extravagant procedure, and consumed valuable time each morning. Still, it was the best way he had found to deal with his condition.
Life could be tricky for a man who awoke each morning with a different level of intelligence. Particularly when the entire world might depend upon his genius, or might come crashing down upon his idiocy.
“How is it out there?” Taravangian asked softly, picking at his meal, which had gone cold during the testing.
“Horrible,” Mrall said with a grin. “Just as we wanted it.”
“Do not take pleasure in suffering,” Taravangian replied. “Even when it is a work of our hands.” He took a bite of the mush. “Particularly when it is a work of our hands.”
“As you wish. I will do so no more.”
“Can you really change that easily?” Taravangian asked. “Turn off your emotions on a whim?”
“Of course,” Mrall said.
Something about that tickled at Taravangian, some thread of interest. If he had been in one of his more brilliant states, he might have seized upon it—but today, he sensed thought seeping away like water between fingers. Once, he had fretted about these missed opportunities, but he had eventually made his peace. Days of brilliance—he had come to learn—brought their own problems.
“Let me see the Diagram,” he said. Anything to distract from this slop they insisted on feeding him.
Mrall stepped aside, allowing Adrotagia—head of Taravangian’s scholars—to approach, bearing a thick, leatherbound volume. She set it onto the table before Taravangian, then bowed.
Taravangian rested his fingers upon the leatherbound cover, feeling a moment of . . . reverence? Was that right? Did he revere anything anymore? God was dead, after all, and Vorinism therefore a sham.
This book, though, was holy. He opened it to one of the pages marked with a reed. Inside were scribbles.
Frenetic, bombastic, majestic scribbles that had been painstakingly copied from the walls of his former bedroom. Sketches laid atop one another, lists of numbers that seemed to make no sense, lines upon lines upon lines of script written in a cramped hand.
Madness. And genius.
Here and there, Taravangian could find hints that this writing was his own. The way he wiggled a line, the way he wrote along the edge of a wall, much like how he would write along the side of a page when he was running out of room. He didn’t remember any of this. It was the product of twenty hours of
lucid insanity, the most brilliant he had ever been.
“Does it strike you as odd, Adro,” Taravangian asked the scholar, “that genius and idiocy are so similar?”
“Similar?” Adrotagia asked. “Vargo, I do not see them as similar at all.” He and Adrotagia had grown up together, and she still used Taravangian’s boyhood nickname. He liked that. It reminded him of days before all of this.
“On both my most stupid days and my most incredible,” Taravangian said, “I am unable to interact with those around me in a meaningful way. It is like . . . like I become a gear that cannot fit those turning beside it. Too small or too large, it does not matter. The clock will not work.”
“I had not considered that,” Adrotagia said.
When Taravangian was at his stupidest, he was not allowed from his room. Those were the days he spent drooling in a corner. When he was merely dull-minded, he was allowed out under supervision. He spent those nights crying for what he had done, knowing that the atrocities he committed were important, but not understanding why.
When he was dull, he could not change policy. Interestingly, he had decided that when he was too brilliant, he was also not allowed to change policy. He’d made this decision after a day of genius where he’d thought to fix all of Kharbranth’s problems with a series of very rational edicts—such as requiring people to take an intelligence test of his own devising before being allowed to breed.
So brilliant on one hand. So stupid on another. Is that your joke here, Nightwatcher? he wondered. Is that the lesson I’m to learn? Do you even care about lessons, or is what you do to us merely for your own amusement?
He turned his attention back to the book, the Diagram. That grand plan he had devised on his singular day of unparalleled brilliance. Then, too, he’d spent the day staring at a wall. He’d written on it. Babbling the whole time, making connections no man had ever before made, he had scribbled all over his walls, floor, even parts of the ceiling he could reach. Most of it had been written in an alien script—a language he himself had devised, for the scripts he had known had been unable to convey ideas precisely enough. Fortunately, he’d thought to carve a key on the top of his bedside table, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to make sense of his masterpiece.
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