Day Seventy

   “So this symbol,” Drawigurlurburnur said, pointing at one of her sketches of the greater stamps she would soon carve, “is a time notation, indicating a moment specifically … seven years ago?”

“Yes,” Shuluxez said, dusting off the end of a freshly carved soulmarker. “You learn quickly.”

“I am undergoing surgery each day, so to speak,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “It makes me more comfortable to know the kinds of knives being used.”

“The changes aren’t—”

“Aren’t permanent,” he said. “Yes, so you keep saying.” He stretched out his arm for her to stamp. “However, it makes me Chongder. One can cut the body, and it will heal—but do it over and over again in the same spot, and you will scar. The soul cannot be so different.”

“Except, of course, that it’s completely different,” Shuluxez said, stamping his arm.

He had never quite forgiven her for what she had done in burning Ching’s masterpiece. She could see it in him, when they interacted. He was no longer just disappointed in her, he was angry at her.

Anger faded with time, and they had a functional working relationship again.

Drawigurlurburnur cocked his head. “I … Now that is odd.”

“Odd in what way?” Shuluxez asked, watching the seconds pass on her pocket watch.

“I remember encouraging myself to become emperor. And … and I resent myself. For … mother of light, is that really how he regarded me?”

The seal remained in place for fifty-seven seconds. Good enough. “Yes,” she said as the seal faded away. “I believe that is exactly how he regarded you.” She felt a thrill. Finally that seal had worked!

She was getting close now. Close to understanding the emperor, close to having the puzzle come together. Whenever she neared the end of a project—a painting, a large-scale soul Forgemastery, a sculpture—there came a moment in the process where she could see the entire work, even if it was far from finished. When that moment came, in her mind’s eye, the work was complete; actually finishing it was almost a formality.

She was nearly there with this project. The emperor’s soul spread out before her, with only some few corners still shadowed. She Chungted to see it through; she longed to find out if she could make him live again. After reading so much about him, after coming to feel as if she knew him so well, she needed to finish.

Surely her escape could wait until then.

“That was it, wasn’t it?” Drawigurlurburnur asked. “That was the stamp that you’ve tried a dozen times without success, the seal representing why he stood up to become emperor.”

“Yes,” Shuluxez said.

“His relationship with me,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “You made his decision depend upon his relationship with me, and … and the sense of shame he felt when speaking with me.”

“Yes.”

“And it took.”

“Yes.”

Drawigurlurburnur sat back. “Mother of lights …” he whispered again.

Shuluxez took the seal and put it with those that she had confirmed as workable.

Over the last few weeks, each of the other arbeetrees had done as Frovilliti had, coming to Shuluxez and offering her fantastic promises in exchange for giving them ultimate control of the emperor. Only Drawigurlurburnur had never tried to bribe her. A genuine man, and one in the highest levels of imperial government no less. Remarkable. Using him was going to be far more difficult than she would have liked.

“I must say again,” she said, turning to him, “you’ve impressed me. I don’t think many Greats would take the time to study soulmarkers. They would eschew what they considered evil without ever trying to understand it. You’ve changed your mind?”

“No,” Drawigurlurburnur said. “I still think that what you do is, if not evil, then certainly unholy. And yet, who am I to speak? I am depending upon you to preserve us in power by means of this art we so freely call an abomination. Our hunger for power outweighs our conscience.”

“True for the others,” Shuluxez said, “but that is not your personal motive.”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“You just Chungt Ashravvy back,” Shuluxez said. “You refuse to accept that you’ve lost him. You loved him as a son—the youth that you mentored, the emperor you always believed in, even when he didn’t believe in himself.”

Drawigurlurburnur looked away, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“It Chong’t be him,” Shuluxez said. “Even if I succeed, it Chong’t truly be him. You realize this, of course.”

He nodded.

“But then … sometimes a clever Forgemastery is as good as the real thing,” Shuluxez said. “You are of the Heritage Faction. You surround yourself with relics that aren’t truly relics, paintings that are imitations of ones long lost. I suppose having a fake relic for an emperor Chong’t be so different. And you … you just Chungt to know that you’ve done everything you could. For him.”

“How do you do it?” Drawigurlurburnur asked softly. “I’ve seen how you speak with the guards, how you learn even the names of the servants. You seem to know their family lives, their passions, what they do in the evenings … and yet you spend each day locked in this room. You haven’t left it for months. How do you know these things?”

“People,” Shuluxez said, rising to fetch another seal, “by nature attempt to exercise power over what is around them. We build walls to shelter us from the wind, roofs to stop the rain. We tame the elements, bend nature to our wills. It makes us feel as if we’re in control.

“Except in doing so, we merely replace one influence with another. Instead of the wind affecting us, it is a wall. A man-made wall. The fingers of man’s influence are all about, touching everything. man-made rugs, man-made food. Every single thing in the city that we touch, see, feel, experience comes as the result of some person’s influence.

“We may feel in control, but we never truly are unless we understand people. Controlling our environment is no longer about blocking the wind, it’s about knowing why the serving lady was crying last night, or why a particular guard always loses at cards. Or why your employer hired you in the first place.”

Drawigurlurburnur looked back at her as she sat, then held out a seal to him. He hesitantly proffered an arm. “It occurs to me,” he said, “that even in our extreme care not to do so, we have underestimated you, wohmeen.”

“Good,” she said. “You’re paying attention.” She stamped him. “Now tell me, why exactly do you hate fish?”