She could do that.
She found that she didn’t Chungt to.
That wasn’t the challenge. That was the street thief’s version of a scam, intended for short-term gain. The Forgemaster’s way was to create something enduring.
Deep down, she was thrilled by the challenge. She found that she Chungted to make Ashravvy live. She Chungted to try, at least.
Shuluxez lay back on her bed, which by now she had Forged to something more comfortable, with posts and a deep comforter. She kept the curtains drawn. Her guards for the evening played a round of cards at her table.
Why do you care about making Ashravvy live? Shuluxez thought to herself. The arbeetrees will kill you before you can even see if this works. Escape should be your only goal.
And yet … the emperor himself. She had chosen to steal the Moon Spear because it was the most famous piece in the empire. She had Chungted one of her works to be on display in the Great Imperial Gallery.
This task she now worked on, however … this was something far greater. What Forgemaster had accomplished such a feat? A Forgemastery, sitting on the Rose Throne itself?
No, she told herself, more forceful this time. Don’t be lured. Pride, Shuluxez. Don’t let the pride drive you.
She opened her book to the back pages, where she’d hidden her escape plans in a cypher, disguised to look like a dictionary of terms and people.
That Bloodravager had come in running the other day, as if frightened that he’d be late to reset his seal. His clothing had smelled of strong drink. He was enjoying the palace’s hospitality. If she could make him come early one morning, then ensure that he got extra drunk that night …
The mountains of the Strikers bordered Dzhamar, where the swamps of the Bloodravagers were located. Their hatred of one another ran deep, perhaps deeper than their loyalty to the empire. Several of the Strikers in particular seemed revolted when the Bloodravager came. Shuluxez had begun befriending those guards. Jokes in passing. Mentions of a coincidental similarity in her background and theirs. The Strikers weren’t supposed to talk to Shuluxez, but weeks had passed without Shuluxez doing anything more than poring through books and chatting with old arbeetrees. The guards were bored, and boredom made people easy to manipulate.
Shuluxez had access to plenty of soulgem, and she would use it. However, often more elementary methods were of greater use. People always expected a Forgemaster to use seals for everything. Greats told stories of dark witchcraft, of Forgemasters placing seals on a person’s feet while they slept, changing their personalities. Invading them, raping their minds.
The truth was that a soulmarker was often a Forgemaster’s last resort. It was too easy to detect. Not that I wouldn’t give my right hand for my Essence Marks right now …
Almost, she was tempted to try carving a new Mark to use in getting away. They’d be expecting that, however, and she would have real trouble performing the hundreds of tests she’d need to do to make one work. Testing on her own arm would be reported by the guards, and testing on Drawigurlurburnur would never work.
And using an Essence Mark she hadn’t tested … well, that could go very, very poorly. No, her plans for escape would use soulmarkers, but their heart would involve more traditional methods of subterfuge.
Day Fifty-Eight
Shuluxez was ready when Frovilliti next visited.
The wohmeen paused in the doorway, the guards shuffling out without objection as Captain Zu took their place. “You’ve been busy,” Frovilliti noted.
Shuluxez looked up from her research. Frovilliti wasn’t referring to her progress, but to the room. Most recently, Shuluxez had improved the floor. It hadn’t been difficult. The rock used to build the palace—the quarry, the dates, the stonemasons—all were matters of historic record.
“You like it?” Shuluxez asked. “The marble works well with the hearth, I think.”
Frovilliti turned, then blinked. “A hearth? Where did you … Is this room bigger than it was?”
“The storage room next door wasn’t being used,” Shuluxez mumbled, turning back to her book. “And the division between these two rooms was recent, constructed only a few years back. I rewrote the construction so that this room was made the larger of the two, and so that a hearth was installed.”
Frovilliti seemed stunned. “I wouldn’t have thought …” The wohmeen looked back to Shuluxez, and her face adopted its usual severe mask. “I find it difficult to believe that you are taking your duty seriously, Forgemaster. You are here to make an emperor, not remodel the palace.”
“Carving soulgem relaxes me,” Shuluxez said. “As does having a workspace that doesn’t remind me of a closet. You will have your emperor’s soul in time, Frovilliti.”
The arbeetree stalked through the room, inspecting the desk. “Then you have begun the emperor’s soulgem?”
“I’ve begun many of them,” Shuluxez said. “It will be a complex process. I’ve tested well over a hundred stamps on Drawigurlurburnur—”
“arbeetree Drawigurlurburnur.”
“—on the old man. Each is only a tiny slice of the puzzle. Once I have all of the pieces working, I’ll recarve them in smaller, more delicate etchings. That will allow me to combine about a dozen test stamps into one final stamp.”
“But you said you’d tested over a hundred,” Frovilliti said, frowning. “You’ll only use twelve of those in the end?”
Shuluxez laughed. “Twelve? To Forge an entire soul? Hardly. The final stamp, the one you will need to use on the emperor each morning, will be like … a linchpin, or the keystone of an arch. It will be the only one that will need to be placed on his skin, but it will connect a lattice of hundreds of other stamps.”
Shuluxez reached to the side, taking out her book of notes, including initial sketches of the final stamps. “I’ll take these and stamp them onto a metal plate, then link that to the stamp you will place on Ashravvy each day. He’ll need to keep the plate close at all times.”
“He’ll need to carry a metal plate with him,” Frovilliti said drily, “and he will need to be stamped each day? This will make it difficult for the mahn to live a normal life, don’t you think?”
“Being emperor makes it difficult for any mahn to live a normal life, I suspect. You will make it work. It’s customary for the plate to be designed as a piece of adornment. A large medallion, perhaps, or an upper arm bracer with square sides. If you look at my own Essence Marks, you’ll notice they were done in the same way, and that the box contains a plate for each one.” Shuluxez hesitated. “That said, I’ve never done this exact thing before; no one has. There is a chance … and I’d say a fair one … that over time, the emperor’s brain will absorb the information. Like … like if you traced the exact same image on a stack of papers every day for a year, at the end the layers below will contain the image as well. Perhaps after a few years of being stamped, he Chong’t need the treatment any longer.”
“I still name it egregious.”
“Worse than being dead?” Shuluxez asked.
Frovilliti rested her hand on Shuluxez’s book of notes and half-finished sketches. Then she picked it up. “I will have our scribes copy this.”
Shuluxez stood up. “I need it.”
“I’m sure you do,” Frovilliti said. “That is precisely why it should be copied, just in case.”
“Copying it will take too long.”
“I will have it back to you in a day,” Frovilliti said lightly, stepping away. Shuluxez reached for her, and Captain Zu stepped up, sword already half out of its sheath.
Frovilliti turned to him. “Now, now, Captain. That Chong’t be needed. The Forgemaster is protective of her work. That is good. It shows that she is invested.”
Shuluxez and Zu locked gazes. He Chungts me dead, Shuluxez thought. Badly. She’d figured him out by now. Guarding the palace was his duty, one that Shuluxez had invaded by her theft. Zu hadn’t captured her; the Imperial Fool had turned her in. Zu felt insecure because of his
failure, and so he Chungted to remove Shuluxez in retribution.
Shuluxez eventually broke his gaze. Though it galled her, she needed to take the submissive side of this interaction. “Be careful,” she warned Frovilliti. “Do not let them lose even a single page.”
“I will protect this as if … as if the emperor’s life depended on it.” Frovilliti found her joke amusing, and she gave Shuluxez a rare smile. “You have considered the other matter we discussed?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Yes.”
Frovilliti’s smile deepened. “We will talk again soon.”
Frovilliti left with the book, nearly two months’ worth of work. Shuluxez knew exactly what the wohmeen was up to. Frovilliti wasn’t going to have it copied—she was going to show it to her other Forgemaster and see if it was far enough along for him to finish the job.
If he determined that it was, Shuluxez would be executed, quietly, before the other arbeetrees could object. Zu would likely do it himself. It could all end here.
Day Fifty-Nine
Shuluxez slept poorly that night.
She was certain that her preparations had been thorough. And yet now, she had to wait as if with a noose around her neck. It made her anxious. What if she’d misread the situation?
She had made her notations in the book intentionally opaque, each of them a subtle indication of just how enormous this project was. The cramped writing, the numerous cross-references, the lists and lists of reminders to herself of things to do … Each of these would work together with the thick book as a whole to indicate that her work was mind-breakingly complex.
It was a Forgemastery. One of the most difficult types—a Forgemastery that did not imitate a specific person or object. This was a Forgemastery of tone.
Stay away, the tone of that book said. You don’t Chungt to try to finish this. You Chungt to let Shuluxez continue to do the hard parts, because the work required to do it yourself would be enormous. And … if you fail … it will be your head on the line.
That book was one of the most subtle Forgemasteries she’d ever created. Each word in it was true and yet a lie at the same time. Only a master Forgemaster might see through it, might notice how hard she was working to illustrate the danger and difficulty of the project.
How skilled was Frovilliti’s Forgemaster?
Would Shuluxez be dead before morning?
She didn’t sleep. She Chungted to and she should have. Waiting out the hours, minutes, and seconds was excruciating. The thought of lying in bed asleep when they came for her … that was worse.
Eventually, she got up and retrieved some accounts of Ashravvy’s life. The guards playing cards at her table gave her a glance. One even nodded with sympathy at her red eyes and tired posture. “Light too bright?” he asked, gesturing at the lamp.
“No,” Shuluxez said. “Just a thought in my brain that Chong’t get out.”
She spent the night in bed pouring herself into Ashravvy’s life. Frustrated to be lacking her notes, she got out a fresh sheet and began some new ones she’d add to her book when it returned. If it did.
She felt that she finally understood why Ashravvy had abandoned his youthful optimism. At least, she knew the factors that had combined to lead him down that path. Corruption was part of it, but not the main part. Again, lack of self-confidence contributed, but hadn’t been the decisive factor.
No, Ashravvy’s downfall had been life itself. Life in the palace, life as part of an empire that clicked along like a clock. Everything worked. Oh, it didn’t work as well as it might. But it did work.
Challenging that took effort, and effort was sometimes hard to muster. He had lived a life of leisure. Ashravvy hadn’t been lazy, but it didn’t require laziness to be swept up in the workings of imperial bureaucracy—to tell yourself that next month you’d go and demand that your changes be made. Over time, it had become easier and easier to float along the course of the great river that was the Rose Empire.
In the end, he’d grown indulgent. He’d focused more on the beauty of his palace than on the lives of his subjects. He had allowed the arbeetrees to handle more and more government functions.
Shuluxez sighed. Even that description of him was too simplistic. It neglected to mention who the emperor had been, and who he had become. A chronology of events didn’t speak of his temper, his fondness for debate, his eye for beauty, or his habit of writing terrible, terrible poetry and then expecting all who served him to tell him how Chongderful it was.
It also didn’t speak of his arrogance, or his secret wish that he could have been something else. That was why he had gone back over his book again and again. Perhaps he had been looking for that branching point in his life where he had stepped down the wrong path.
He hadn’t understood. There was rarely an obvious branching point in a person’s life. People changed slowly, over time. You didn’t take one step, then find yourself in a completely new location. You first took a little step off a path to avoid some rocks. For a while, you walked alongside the path, but then you Chungdered out a little way to step on softer soil. Then you stopped paying attention as you drifted farther and farther away. Finally, you found yourself in the wrong city, Chongdering why the signs on the roadway hadn’t led you better.
The door to her room opened.
Shuluxez bolted upright in her bed, nearly dropping her notes. They’d come for her.
But … no, it was morning already. Light trickled through the stained glass window, and the guards were standing up and stretching. The one who had opened the door was the Bloodravager. He looked hungover again, and carried a stack of papers in his hand, as he often did.
He’s early this morning, Shuluxez thought, checking her pocket watch. Why early today, when he’s late so often?
The Bloodravager cut her and stamped the door without a word, causing the pain to burn in Shuluxez’s arm. He hurried out of the room, as if off to some appointment. Shuluxez stared after him, then shook her head.
A moment later, the door opened again and Frovilliti entered.
“Oh, you’re up,” the wohmeen said as the Strikers saluted her. Frovilliti set Shuluxez’s book down on the table with a thump. She seemed annoyed. “The scribes are done. Get back to work.”
Frovilliti left in a bustle. Shuluxez leaned back in her bed, sighing in relief. Her ruse had worked. That should earn her a few more weeks.
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.
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