The Black Prism
Page 113
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And soon enough, Karris found out why as one of the slaves took out violet eye caps. Blind them, they’d thought of everything.
“If you tear these off, you’ll certainly rip your skin,” one of the slave women said. “And possibly tear off your entire eyelid. If you leave them alone, the king may give you greater freedom, and it won’t hurt your eyes. In a few days, they will loosen and come off by themselves.”
“At which point you’ll reglue them,” Karris said.
“Yes.”
“What if I get something in my eye?” It would be impossible to get it out.
“Try not to.”
They tried the fit over her eye sockets. The caps weren’t a perfect fit. The slave woman, eastern Atashian from her features, scowled. “To make the caps fit, we’re going to have to use extra glue. Extra glue means if you blink, your eyelashes will get stuck. King Garadul wants you for your beauty, so I don’t want to cut off your eyelashes if I can help it. But once we set the caps on your face, they’ll be there for days. You really don’t want your eyelashes globbed with glue—or stuck in it. So, do you want to be blind, irritated, or lashless?”
“Lashless, and to hell with Rask,” Karris said.
The slave pursed her lips. “You’re right. The king might be annoyed. We’ll have to take our chances. Blink right now as much as you can, because you’re going to have to not blink for as long as possible.” With great care and globs of glue, they put the eye caps on. The glue globs took care of the gaps left in the fit.
Karris barely dared breathe, holding as still as possible, forcing herself not to blink. When she finally broke down and had to blink, her lashes caught for a moment in the drying glue, but pulled free.
“Oh, and try not to cry,” the slave said. “Or you’ll be up to your eyeballs in tears. Literally.” She smiled unpleasantly.
Hilarious.
They put more makeup around her eyes after the glue was fully dried.
Then, bracketed by drafters and Mirrormen, Karris was whisked through camp. The sun had set perhaps an hour before, and Karris welcomed the fresh, dry air. Over the smell of her own perfume, she was finally able to smell horses, men, campfires, butchered raw meat, cooking meat, sagebrush, oil. Oil? She looked around and saw a supply wagon nearby. Oh, oiled swords and gunmetal.
With the number of wagons surrounding her own, Karris couldn’t see enough of the army to get a good idea of how many men were marching on Garriston. Even the number of wagons didn’t help her. She didn’t know how heavily or lightly packed they were, and even if she did, the last time she’d traveled with an army, she hadn’t paid any attention to such things. Young, pampered, terrified, and stupid, it hadn’t occurred to her that such simple things might be useful to her someday.
There were a large number of women diffused throughout the army, carrying fresh-cut wood for the fires, standing on the butcher’s wagon, shouting at men to make sure the skinned wild javelinas were dispersed fairly, tending the minor injuries inevitable in moving thousands, taking in weapons and armor that needed repair for the blacksmiths, rejecting those that they deemed reparable by the men trying to get someone else to do it. Most of the women seemed to be in service roles, however, which either meant that King Garadul didn’t think much of women or that most were new recruits. From the wide variety of their dress, Karris guessed they came from all over the social spectrum. That meant they were newer recruits, and willing ones. These people weren’t all servants he’d brought from Kelfing; they were locals. King Garadul had significant support from the Tyrean people.
From the glimpses out into the growing darkness punctuated by fires scattered randomly as stars, it seemed the army sprawled wherever it willed, but Karris was brought quickly to an area where perhaps fifty wagons were circled, leaving only a few avenues between them at the points of the compass where horses would be able to pass, each guarded by ten Mirrormen with matchlocks. In the middle there was an open space for defense, small falconets pointed out everywhere like a porcupine ready to fire its quills, and then a number of large striped pavilions of every color.
A cramp caught Karris as she was ushered to the central pavilion. She hunched, breath taken away. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and the luxin caps cut into her brows and cheeks painfully. She smoothed her expression and waited until the fury of the cramp passed. She took a slow breath, mastering the pain. Then she gestured to one of her guards, as if she were a queen and ready to enter now, thank you.
The man pulled back the pavilion’s flap, and Karris entered.
It must have been some dress. Because as soon as Karris stepped inside, conversation ceased.
There were perhaps seventy people in the pavilion: slaves, tumblers, jugglers, and musicians surrounding perhaps thirty noblemen and -women seated on cushions around a lower table piled high with delicacies and wine. Everyone was colorfully dressed, so much so that Karris could tell even through the muting of her dark eye caps. King Rask Garadul sat at the head of the table, of course, rings sparkling from fingers wrapped around a wine goblet. He had stopped, midsentence, and was staring at her, openmouthed.
But Karris barely even saw the king, because at his right hand sat a man like none she’d ever seen. She forced herself to continue walking toward the king, hips rolling, skirt swishing, head up, shoulders loose, as if she weren’t unnerved.
The man was a Tainted, a color wight. Karris had only ever seen one, and that one had been in the early stages of his madness. This man wasn’t in the early stages, but neither did he appear mad. He wore a simple luxiat’s robe, but it was dazzling white rather than the customary black of Orholam’s luxiants, that color an admission that they needed Orholam’s light most of all. Nor did his face bear any trace of a luxiant’s humility.
But at least his face was mostly human—skin and bone and blood. Threads of green luxin lay submerged beneath burn-scarred skin like faded tattoos, rising close to the surface at his cheekbones and brow. At his neck, his body changed. The skin was pure luxin of every color of the rainbow. The inside of his elbow, visible as he raised his wine goblet in a mocking salute to Karris, was flexible green luxin, as were his other joints and his neck. Blue luxin plates sat on every surface that didn’t need to move. It made plate armor on his forearms, formed gauntlets from his very hands, his knuckles spiked, his shoulders unnaturally broad under that blasphemous luxiant’s robe, the V of his chest visible through the robe shimmering with reflected light like the sea at sunrise. Not plates of blue luxin, then, but actually woven blue luxin, which tripled its strength and made it much less likely to shatter, if one had the skill and patience to make it.
Everywhere, yellow luxin flowed between or beneath the other colors, constantly renewing whatever was lost to sunlight or natural breakdown. Where plates came together, lubricative orange luxin made them slide smoothly past each other. Red luxin formed archaic designs of runes and etchings of eight-pointed stars in thin layers on top of the blue plates. Karris couldn’t see if he had incorporated superviolet into his skin, but was certain he had. After all, in the middle of each palm he’d embedded a flame crystal. Flame crystals, the physical, sealed manifestation of sub-red, usually only lasted a few seconds. Exposure to air made them burst and flame out.
“If you tear these off, you’ll certainly rip your skin,” one of the slave women said. “And possibly tear off your entire eyelid. If you leave them alone, the king may give you greater freedom, and it won’t hurt your eyes. In a few days, they will loosen and come off by themselves.”
“At which point you’ll reglue them,” Karris said.
“Yes.”
“What if I get something in my eye?” It would be impossible to get it out.
“Try not to.”
They tried the fit over her eye sockets. The caps weren’t a perfect fit. The slave woman, eastern Atashian from her features, scowled. “To make the caps fit, we’re going to have to use extra glue. Extra glue means if you blink, your eyelashes will get stuck. King Garadul wants you for your beauty, so I don’t want to cut off your eyelashes if I can help it. But once we set the caps on your face, they’ll be there for days. You really don’t want your eyelashes globbed with glue—or stuck in it. So, do you want to be blind, irritated, or lashless?”
“Lashless, and to hell with Rask,” Karris said.
The slave pursed her lips. “You’re right. The king might be annoyed. We’ll have to take our chances. Blink right now as much as you can, because you’re going to have to not blink for as long as possible.” With great care and globs of glue, they put the eye caps on. The glue globs took care of the gaps left in the fit.
Karris barely dared breathe, holding as still as possible, forcing herself not to blink. When she finally broke down and had to blink, her lashes caught for a moment in the drying glue, but pulled free.
“Oh, and try not to cry,” the slave said. “Or you’ll be up to your eyeballs in tears. Literally.” She smiled unpleasantly.
Hilarious.
They put more makeup around her eyes after the glue was fully dried.
Then, bracketed by drafters and Mirrormen, Karris was whisked through camp. The sun had set perhaps an hour before, and Karris welcomed the fresh, dry air. Over the smell of her own perfume, she was finally able to smell horses, men, campfires, butchered raw meat, cooking meat, sagebrush, oil. Oil? She looked around and saw a supply wagon nearby. Oh, oiled swords and gunmetal.
With the number of wagons surrounding her own, Karris couldn’t see enough of the army to get a good idea of how many men were marching on Garriston. Even the number of wagons didn’t help her. She didn’t know how heavily or lightly packed they were, and even if she did, the last time she’d traveled with an army, she hadn’t paid any attention to such things. Young, pampered, terrified, and stupid, it hadn’t occurred to her that such simple things might be useful to her someday.
There were a large number of women diffused throughout the army, carrying fresh-cut wood for the fires, standing on the butcher’s wagon, shouting at men to make sure the skinned wild javelinas were dispersed fairly, tending the minor injuries inevitable in moving thousands, taking in weapons and armor that needed repair for the blacksmiths, rejecting those that they deemed reparable by the men trying to get someone else to do it. Most of the women seemed to be in service roles, however, which either meant that King Garadul didn’t think much of women or that most were new recruits. From the wide variety of their dress, Karris guessed they came from all over the social spectrum. That meant they were newer recruits, and willing ones. These people weren’t all servants he’d brought from Kelfing; they were locals. King Garadul had significant support from the Tyrean people.
From the glimpses out into the growing darkness punctuated by fires scattered randomly as stars, it seemed the army sprawled wherever it willed, but Karris was brought quickly to an area where perhaps fifty wagons were circled, leaving only a few avenues between them at the points of the compass where horses would be able to pass, each guarded by ten Mirrormen with matchlocks. In the middle there was an open space for defense, small falconets pointed out everywhere like a porcupine ready to fire its quills, and then a number of large striped pavilions of every color.
A cramp caught Karris as she was ushered to the central pavilion. She hunched, breath taken away. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, and the luxin caps cut into her brows and cheeks painfully. She smoothed her expression and waited until the fury of the cramp passed. She took a slow breath, mastering the pain. Then she gestured to one of her guards, as if she were a queen and ready to enter now, thank you.
The man pulled back the pavilion’s flap, and Karris entered.
It must have been some dress. Because as soon as Karris stepped inside, conversation ceased.
There were perhaps seventy people in the pavilion: slaves, tumblers, jugglers, and musicians surrounding perhaps thirty noblemen and -women seated on cushions around a lower table piled high with delicacies and wine. Everyone was colorfully dressed, so much so that Karris could tell even through the muting of her dark eye caps. King Rask Garadul sat at the head of the table, of course, rings sparkling from fingers wrapped around a wine goblet. He had stopped, midsentence, and was staring at her, openmouthed.
But Karris barely even saw the king, because at his right hand sat a man like none she’d ever seen. She forced herself to continue walking toward the king, hips rolling, skirt swishing, head up, shoulders loose, as if she weren’t unnerved.
The man was a Tainted, a color wight. Karris had only ever seen one, and that one had been in the early stages of his madness. This man wasn’t in the early stages, but neither did he appear mad. He wore a simple luxiat’s robe, but it was dazzling white rather than the customary black of Orholam’s luxiants, that color an admission that they needed Orholam’s light most of all. Nor did his face bear any trace of a luxiant’s humility.
But at least his face was mostly human—skin and bone and blood. Threads of green luxin lay submerged beneath burn-scarred skin like faded tattoos, rising close to the surface at his cheekbones and brow. At his neck, his body changed. The skin was pure luxin of every color of the rainbow. The inside of his elbow, visible as he raised his wine goblet in a mocking salute to Karris, was flexible green luxin, as were his other joints and his neck. Blue luxin plates sat on every surface that didn’t need to move. It made plate armor on his forearms, formed gauntlets from his very hands, his knuckles spiked, his shoulders unnaturally broad under that blasphemous luxiant’s robe, the V of his chest visible through the robe shimmering with reflected light like the sea at sunrise. Not plates of blue luxin, then, but actually woven blue luxin, which tripled its strength and made it much less likely to shatter, if one had the skill and patience to make it.
Everywhere, yellow luxin flowed between or beneath the other colors, constantly renewing whatever was lost to sunlight or natural breakdown. Where plates came together, lubricative orange luxin made them slide smoothly past each other. Red luxin formed archaic designs of runes and etchings of eight-pointed stars in thin layers on top of the blue plates. Karris couldn’t see if he had incorporated superviolet into his skin, but was certain he had. After all, in the middle of each palm he’d embedded a flame crystal. Flame crystals, the physical, sealed manifestation of sub-red, usually only lasted a few seconds. Exposure to air made them burst and flame out.
