The Black Prism
Page 102

“Of course, it’s a circle that spirals on itself. You’re a satrap, you’ve paid a fortune for a bichrome drafter, well, now you’ve invested so much in him that you can’t afford for him to fail you, so you have to reinforce his feelings of superiority and pamper him, give him slaves and so forth. It makes the more powerful drafters more and more difficult to manage.”
There was a cough from behind them. Ironfist.
“Commander,” Gavin asked, “you have something to add to this discussion?”
“Little dust in my throat. Apologies,” Ironfist said, sounding not at all apologetic.
“Problem with will is, we think that the more will a man or woman expends in their life, the faster they die. Or it could merely be that men or women with great will tend to draft a lot more. Either way, their careers are spectacular. And short. It’s probably why male drafters don’t tend to live as long as women do, expending will all the time in order to have their drafting be useful. Side effect is that among the most powerful drafters, we have a lot of people with titanic will. Or, to put it bluntly, a lot of arrogant assholes. Especially the men. And madmen. Delusional people tend to believe in what they’re doing. Makes them powerful.”
“So I’m going to be spending my time with crazy, arrogant bastards.”
“Well, many of them are of the finest blood.”
Oh, that’s right, I’m the only bastard around here. “I thought being a drafter was going to be fun,” Kip said.
“Grunts never get to scull,” Gavin said.
“Grunts?”
“Grunts, mundies, norms, grubbers, clods, shovelslingers, blinders, dulls, scrubs, mouth breathers, slumps, the benighted—there’s lots of names. Most of them not as nice as those. They all mean the same thing: non-drafters.”
“So what about you?” Kip asked, as they finally left the alleys. They crossed a wide, peaked stone bridge over the Umber River.
Gavin looked at him. “You mean what nasty names do they call me?”
“No!” Oh, Gavin was teasing. Kip scowled. “Your eyes don’t”—he looked for the right word—“halo. So does that mean you can draft as much as you want?”
“I tire like anyone, but yes. For a time I can draft every day as much as I can handle and it won’t burn me out. Someday, most likely five years from now, I will start to lose colors. It will take about a year, and then I’ll die.”
“Why five years from now?” Kip asked. It was still odd to him how matter-of-fact drafters were about their impending deaths. I guess they have time to get used to the idea.
“It always happens on multiples of seven from when a Prism begins his reign. I’ve made it sixteen years, so I have until twenty-one. Long time for a Prism.”
“Oh. Why multiples of seven?”
“Because there’s seven colors, seven virtues, seven satrapies? Because Orholam likes the number seven? Truth is, no one knows.”
They walked on through streets swelling with people starting their morning errands, and those eager to get as much work done as possible before the heat of the day. They approached a long line of workers bottlenecked at the Lover’s Gate, heading out to work outside the city. Though Kip didn’t even see him draft, Gavin turned and handed him a green rock. Not a rock. Green luxin, perfectly the size to fit in Kip’s palm. Kip took it, confused.
“You bring your specs?” Gavin asked. He handed Kip a square board, not a foot on each side, perfectly white.
Kip produced them. Smiled weakly. I have a bad feeling about what he’s going to tell me next.
“Your turn. You can have lunch—or dinner or possibly breakfast—when you make a green luxin ball of your own. You’ve got the spectacles, a white reflector, plenty of sun, and an example. I couldn’t make it easier if I tried.”
“But I need Skill, Will, Source, and Still. I don’t have skill. Any skill. At all.”
Gavin looked at him sardonically. “And how do you think you get skilled? Skill is the most overrated of the requisites. Will covers a multitude of flaws.”
I keep hearing that. Kip hadn’t even had breakfast, and he wasn’t going to get to eat until he made a magic ball? Fantastic.
They came upon the back of the line. Gavin glanced at Commander Ironfist. Without further prompting, Ironfist said, “Looks like a wagon broke down. It’s blocking half the gate.”
Gavin swept a hand forward, as in, You go first. Commander Ironfist went first, and the impatient farmers and craftsman parted easily for him. Or at least those who looked furious at being pushed aside quickly hid it once they saw the size of the man towering over them. “We’re going to help,” Gavin said.
“Sure, you Parian scum,” someone said, spitting. Gavin stopped and scanned the crowd for who’d spoken. As men met his eyes and saw those prismatic orbs, they quieted, confused, stunned.
“You can have my help, or you can have my enmity,” Gavin said loudly. He unbuttoned the nondescript cloak and threw it back over his shoulders, exposing the almost blindingly white coat and shirt he wore underneath, worked with gold thread and jewels.
He walked on, and Kip scooted close to him. The crowd parted around them, murmuring questions and imprecations. In a minute, they were at the front of the line. At least a dozen men were straining to move a wagon. Apparently, the horses had spooked and veered to the side as they passed through the gate. The wagon’s wheel had smashed into the gate’s support—here actually the Lover’s hair. The wheel was completely shattered, as was the wagon’s axle, and the whole thing was still stuck against the wall, making normal efforts at repair impossible. The men were straining to lift the wagon by sheer brute strength, with a few using long poles to try to crank the mass off the wall.
“We’re going to have to bring up an empty wagon and unload this before we’ve got a chance,” one of the guards was saying.
To Kip’s admittedly inexperienced eye, the man was right. The combined muscle of all these laborers was barely budging the wagon. But the assembled crowd groaned, a few complaining aloud.
“Bring an empty wagon? From where? Through that whole mess behind us? It’ll take hours!”
“You all are going to have to use the other gates today,” the guard said.
That met similar protests. With how thickly crowded the street was, none of the men at the front of the line would be able to leave until everyone at the back dispersed. It would take hours.
“What?” the guard shouted. “I didn’t do this. I’m just trying to fix it! You have a better idea?”
“I do,” Gavin said.
“Oh, sure, you smart—Lord Prism!” the guard said.
That sent a ripple of murmurs through the crowd.
Gavin ignored it. He gestured to the men to step back. They did, some in awe, others more peeved, some hostile. He simply walked to where the wagon was smashed against the wall. “I see why you had trouble,” he said. “But I have a few extra tools available to me.”
Kip, still holding his green luxin ball and the white board, realized Commander Ironfist had disappeared.
He’s gigantic. How does he disappear? Kip looked around, and finally found him. The commander was standing behind a man in the crowd whose hand had dropped to the big work knife at his belt. Commander Ironfist’s huge hand enveloped both the man’s hand and his knife. The commander himself, towering over the man, was quietly speaking in his ear.