“No, but I’ll take the patterns that work and incorporate them into a greater fabrication. Think of these seals as single characters in a large scroll; once I am done, I’ll be able to put them together and tell a story. The story of a man’s history and personality. Unfortunately, even if the Forgemastery takes, there will be small differences. I suggest that you begin spreading rumors that the emperor was wounded. Not terribly, mind you, but imply a good knock to the head. That will explain discrepancies.”
“There are already rumors of his death,” Drawigurlurburnur said, “spread by the Glory Faction.”
“Well, indicate he was wounded instead.”
“But—”
Shuluxez raised the stamp. “Even if I accomplish the impossible—which, mind you, I’ve done only on rare occasions—the Forgemastery will not have all of the emperor’s memories. It can only contain things I have been able to read about or guess. Ashravvy will have had many private conversations that the Forgemastery will not be able to recall. I can imbue him with a keen ability to fake—I have a particular understanding of that sort of thing—but fakery can only take a person so far. Eventually, someone will realize that he has large holes in his memory. Spread the rumors, Drawigurlurburnur. You’re going to need them.”
He nodded, then pulled back his sleeve to expose his arm for her to stamp. She raised the stamp, and Drawigurlurburnur sighed, then squeezed his eyes shut and nodded again.
She pressed it against his skin. As always, when the stamp touched the skin, it felt as if she were pressing it against something rigid—as if his arm had become stone. The stamp sank in slightly. That made for a disconcerting sensation when working on a person. She rotated the stamp, then pulled it back, leaving a red seal on Drawigurlurburnur’s arm. She took out her pocket watch, observing the ticking hand.
The seal gave off faint wisps of red smoke; that happened only when living things were stamped. The soul fought against the rewriting. The seal didn’t puff away immediately, though. Shuluxez released a held breath. That was a good sign.
She Chongdered … if she were to try something like this on the emperor, would his soul fight against the invasion? Or instead, would it accept the stamp, wishing to have righted what had gone wrong? Much as that window had Chungted to be restored to its former beauty. She didn’t know.
Drawigurlurburnur opened his eyes. “Did it … work?”
“It took, for now,” Shuluxez said.
“I don’t feel any different.”
“That is the point. If the emperor could feel the stamp’s effects, he would realize that something was wrong. Now, answer me without thought; speak by instinct only. What is your favorite color?”
“Green,” he said immediately.
“Why?”
“Because …” He trailed off, cocking his head. “Because it is.”
“And your brother?”
“I hardly remember him,” Drawigurlurburnur said with a shrug. “He died when I was very young.”
“It is good he did,” Shuluxez said. “He would have made a terrible emperor, if he had been chosen in—”
Drawigurlurburnur stood up. “Don’t you dare speak ill of him! I will have you …” He stiffened, glancing at Zu, who had reached for his sword in alarm. “I … Brother … ?”
The seal faded away.
“A minute and five seconds,” Shuluxez said. “That one looks good.”
Drawigurlurburnur raised a hand to his head. “I can remember having a brother. But … I don’t have one, and never have. I can remember idolizing him; I can remember pain when he died. Such pain …”
“That will fade,” Shuluxez said. “The impressions will wash away like the remnants of a bad dream. In an hour, you’ll barely be able to recall what it was that upset you.” She scribbled some notes. “I think you reacted too strongly to me insulting your brother’s memory. Ashravvy worshipped his brother, but kept his feelings buried deep out of guilt that perhaps his brother would have made a better emperor than he.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“About this?” Shuluxez said. “Yes. I’ll have to revise that stamp a little bit, but I think it is mostly right.”
Drawigurlurburnur sat back down, regarding her with ancient eyes that seemed to be trying to pierce her, to dig deep inside. “You know a great deal about people.”
“It’s one of the early steps of our training,” Shuluxez said. “Before we’re even allowed to touch soulgem.”
“Such potential …” Drawigurlurburnur whispered.
Shuluxez forced down an immediate burst of annoyance. How dare he look at her like that, as if she were wasting her life? She loved Forgemastery. The thrill, a life spent getting ahead by her wits. That was what she was. Wasn’t it?
She thought of one specific Essence Mark, locked away with the others. It was one Mark she had never used, yet was at the same time the most precious of the five.
“Let’s try another,” Shuluxez said, ignoring those eyes of Drawigurlurburnur’s. She couldn’t afford to grow offended. Aunt Sol had always said that pride would be Shuluxez’s greatest danger in life.
“Very well,” Drawigurlurburnur said, “but I am confused at one thing. From what little you’ve told me of this process, I cannot fathom why these seals even begin to work on me. Don’t you need to know a thing’s history exactly to make a seal work on it?”
“To make them stick, yes,” Shuluxez said. “As I’ve said, it’s about plausibility.”
“But this is completely implausible! I don’t have a brother.”
“Ah. Well, let me see if I can explain,” she said, settling back. “I am rewriting your soul to match that of the emperor—just as I rewrote the history of that window to include new stained glass. In both cases, it works because of familiarity. The window frame knows what a stained glass window should look like. It once had stained glass in it. Even though the new window is not the same as the one it once held, the seal works because the general concept of a stained glass window has been fulfilled.
“You spent a great deal of time around the emperor. Your soul is familiar with his, much as the window frame is familiar with the stained glass. This is why I have to try out the seals on someone like you, and not on myself. When I stamp you, it’s like … it’s like I’m presenting to your soul a piece of something it should know. It only works if the piece is very small, but so long as it is—and so long as the soul considers the piece a familiar part of Ashravvy, as I’ve indicated—the stamp will take for a brief time before being rejected.”
Drawigurlurburnur regarded her with bemusement.
“Sounds like superstitious nonsense to you, I assume?” Shuluxez said.
“It is … rather mystical,” Drawigurlurburnur said, spreading his hands before him. “A window frame knowing the ‘concept’ of a stained glass window? A soul understanding the concept of another soul?”
“These things exist beyond us,” Shuluxez said, preparing another seal. “We think about windows, we know about windows; what is and isn’t a window takes on … meaning, in the Spiritual Realm. Takes on life, after a fashion. Believe the explanation or do not; I guess it doesn’t matter. The fact is that I can try these seals on you, and if they stick for at least a minute, it’s a very good indication that I’ve hit on something.
“Ideally, I’d try this on the emperor himself, but in his state, he would not be able to answer my questions. I need to not only get these to take, but I need to make them work together—and that will require your explanations of what you are feeling so I can nudge the design in the right directions. Now, your arm again, please?”
“Very well.” Drawigurlurburnur composed himself, and Shuluxez pressed another seal against his arm. She locked it with a half turn, but as soon as she pulled the stamp away, the seal vanished in a puff of red.
“Blast,” Shuluxez said.
“What happened?” Drawigurlurburnur said, reaching fingers to his arm. He smeared mundane ink; the seal had vanished so
quickly, the ink hadn’t even been incorporated into its workings. “What have you done to me this time?”
“Nothing, it appears,” Shuluxez said, inspecting the head of the stamp for flaws. She found none. “I had that one wrong. Very wrong.”
“What was it?”
“The reason Ashravvy agreed to become emperor,” Shuluxez said. “Nights afire. I was certain I had this one.” She shook her head, setting the stamp aside. Ashravvy, it appeared, had not stepped up to offer himself as emperor because of a deep-seated desire to prove himself to his family and to escape the distant—but long—shadow of his brother.
“I can tell you why he did it, Forgemaster,” Drawigurlurburnur said.
She eyed him. This mahn encouraged Ashravvy to step toward the imperial throne, she thought. Ashravvy eventually hated him for it. I think.
“All right,” she said. “Why?”
“He Chungted to change things,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “In the empire.”
“He doesn’t speak of this in his journal.”
“Ashravvy was a humble man.”
Shuluxez raised an eyebrow. That didn’t match the reports she’d been given.
“Oh, he had a temper,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “And if you got him arguing, he would sink his teeth in and hold fast to his point. But the man … the mahn he was … Deep down, that was a humble man. You will have to understand this about him.”
“I see,” she said. You did it to him too, didn’t you? Shuluxez thought. That look of disappointment, that implication we should be better people than we are. Shuluxez wasn’t the only one who felt that Drawigurlurburnur regarded her as if he were a displeased Greatfather.
That made her Chungt to dismiss the mahn as irrelevant. Except … he had offered himself to her tests. He thought what she did was horrible, so he insisted on taking the punishment himself, instead of sending another.
You’re genuine, aren’t you, old man? Shuluxez thought as Drawigurlurburnur sat back, eyes distant as he considered the emperor. She found herself displeased.
In her business, there were many who laughed at honest men, calling them easy pickings. That was a fallacy. Being honest did not make one naive. A dishonest fool and an honest fool were equally easy to scam; you just went about it in different ways.
However, a mahn who was honest and clever was always, always more difficult to scam than someone who was both dishonest and clever.
Sincerity. It was so difficult, by definition, to fake.
“What are you thinking behind those eyes of yours?” Drawigurlurburnur asked, leaning forward.
“I was thinking that you must have treated the emperor as you did me, annoying him with constant nagging about what he should accomplish.”
Drawigurlurburnur snorted. “I probably did just that. It does not mean my points are, or were, incorrect. He could have … well, he could have become more than he did. Just as you could become a marvelous artist.”
“I am one.”
“A real one.”
“I am one.”
Drawigurlurburnur shook his head. “Frovilliti’s painting … there is something we are missing about it, isn’t there? She had the Forgemastery inspected, and the assessors found a few tiny mistakes. I couldn’t see them without help—but they are there. Upon reflection, they seem odd to me. The strokes are impeccable, masterful even. The style is a perfect match. If you could manage that, why would you have made such errors as putting the moon too low? It’s a subtle mistake, but it occurs to me that you would never have made such an error—not unintentionally, at least.”
Shuluxez turned to get another seal.
“The painting they think is the original,” Drawigurlurburnur said, “the one hanging in Frovilliti’s office right now … It’s a fake too, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Shuluxez admitted with a sigh. “I swapped the paintings a few days before trying for the Spear; I was investigating palace security. I sneaked into the gallery, entered Frovilliti’s offices, and made the change as a test.”
“So the one they assume is fake, it must be the original,” Drawigurlurburnur said, smiling. “You painted those mistakes over the original to make it seem like it was a replica!”
“Actually, no,” Shuluxez said. “Though I have used that trick in the past. They’re both fakes. One is simply the obvious fake, planted to be discovered in case something went wrong.”
“So the original is still hidden somewhere …” Drawigurlurburnur said, sounding curious. “You sneaked into the palace to investigate security, then you replaced the original painting with a copy. You left a second, slightly worse copy in your room as a false trail. If you were found out while sneaking in—or if you were for some reason sold out by an ally—we would search your room and find the poor copy, and assume that you hadn’t yet accomplished your swap. The officers would take the good copy and believe it to be authentic. That way, no one would keep looking for the original.”
“More or less.”
“That’s very clever,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “Why, if you were captured sneaking into the palace trying to steal the Spear, you could confess that you were trying to steal only the painting. A search of your room would turn up the fake, and you’d be charged with attempted theft from an individual, in this case Frovilliti, which is a much lesser crime than trying to steal an imperial relic. You would get ten years of labor instead of a death sentence.”
“Unfortunately,” Shuluxez said, “I was betrayed at the wrong moment. The Fool arranged for me to be caught after I’d left the gallery with the Spear.”
“But what of the original painting? Where did you hide it?” He hesitated. “It’s still in the palace, isn’t it?”
“After a fashion.”
Drawigurlurburnur looked at her, still smiling.
“I burned it,” Shuluxez said.
The smile vanished immediately. “You lie.”
“Not this time, old man,” Shuluxez said. “The painting wasn’t worth the risk to get it out of the gallery. I only pulled that swap to test security. I got the fake in easily; people aren’t searched going in, only coming out. The Spear was my true goal. Stealing the painting was secondary. After I replaced it, I tossed the original into one of the main gallery hearths.”
“That’s horrible,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “It was an original Ching, his greatest masterpiece! He’s gone blind, and can no longer paint. Do you realize the cost …” He sputtered. “I don’t understand. Why, why would you do something like that?”
“It doesn’t matter. No one will know what I’ve done. They will keep looking at the fake and be satisfied, so there’s no harm done.”
“That painting was a priceless work of art!” Drawigurlurburnur glared at her. “Your swap of it was about pride and nothing else. You didn’t care about selling the original. You just Chungted your copy hanging in the gallery instead. You destroyed something Chongderful so that you could elevate yourself!”
She shrugged. There was more to the story, but the fact was, she had burned the painting. She had her reasons.
“We are done for the day,” Drawigurlurburnur said, red faced. He waved a hand at her, dismissive as he stood up. “I had begun to think … Bah!”
He stalked out the door.
Day Forty-Two
Each person was a puzzle.
That was how Tao, her first trainer in Forgemastery, had explained it. A Forgemaster wasn’t a simple scam artist or trickster. A Forgemaster was an artist who painted with human perception.
Any grime-covered urchin on the street could scam someone. A Forgemaster sought loftier heights. Common scammers worked by pulling a cloth over someone’s eyes, then fleeing before realization hit. A Forgemaster had to create something so perfect, so beautiful, so real that their subjects never questioned.
A person was like a dense forest thicket, overgrown with a twisting mess of vines, weeds, shrubs, saplings, and flowers. No person was one single emotion; no person had only one desire. They
had many, and usually those desires conflicted with one another like two rosebushes fighting for the same patch of ground.
Respect the people you lie to, Tao had taught her. Steal from them long enough, and you will begin to understand them.
Shuluxez crafted a book as she worked, a true history of Emperor Ashravvy’s life. It would become a truer history than those his scribes had written to glorify him, a truer history even than the one written by his own hand. Shuluxez slowly pieced together the puzzle, crawling into the thicket that had been Ashravvy’s mind.
He had been idealistic, as Drawigurlurburnur said. She saw it now in the cautious worry of his early writings and in the way he had treated his servants. The empire was not a terrible thing. Neither was it a Chongderful thing. The empire simply was. The people suffered its rule because they were comfortable with its little tyrannies. Corruption was inevitable. You lived with it. It was either that or accept the chaos of the unknown.
Greats were treated with extreme favoritism. Entering government service, the most lucrative and prestigious of occupations, was often more about bribes and connections than it was about skill or aptitude. In addition, some of those who best served the empire—merchants and laborers—were systematically robbed by a hundred hands in their pockets.
Everyone knew these things. Ashravvy had Chungted to change them. At first.
And then … Well, there hadn’t been a specific and then. Poets would point to a single flaw in Ashravvy’s nature that had led him to failure, but a person was no more one flaw than they were one passion. If Shuluxez based her Forgemastery on any single attribute, she would create a mockery, not a man.
But … was that the best she could hope for? Perhaps she should try for authenticity in one specific setting, making an emperor who could act properly in court, but could not fool those closest to him. Perhaps that would work well enough, like the stage props from a playhouse. Those served their purpose while the play was going, but failed serious inspection.
That was an achievable goal. Perhaps she should go to the arbeetrees, explain what was possible, and give them a lesser emperor—a puppet they could use at official functions, then whisk away with explanations that he was growing sickly.
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