“I don’t recognize this piece,” Gaotona said, still looking at the table.
“Why should you?”
“I have studied ancient arts extensively,” he said. “This is from the Vivare dynasty?”
“No.”
“An imitation of the work of Chamrav?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Nothing,” Shai said with exasperation. “It’s not imitating anything; it has become a better version of itself.” That was a maxim of good Forgery: improve slightly on an original, and people would often accept the fake because it was superior.
Gaotona stood up, looking troubled. He’s thinking again that my talent is wasted, Shai thought with annoyance, moving aside a stack of accounts of the emperor’s life. Collected at her request, these came from palace servants. She didn’t want only the official histories. She needed authenticity, not sterilized recitations.
Gaotona stepped back to his chair. “I do not see how transforming this table could have taken hardly any work, although it clearly must be much simpler than what you have been asked to do. Both seem incredible to me.”
“Changing a human soul is far more difficult.”
“I can accept that conceptually, but I do not know the specifics. Why is it so?”
She glanced at him. He wants to know more of what I’m doing, she thought, so that he can tell how I’m preparing to escape. He knew she would be trying, of course. They both would pretend that neither knew that fact.
“All right,” she said, standing and walking to the wall of her room. “Let’s talk about Forgery. Your cage for me had a wall of forty-four types of stone, mostly as a trap to keep me distracted. I had to figure out the makeup and origin of each block if I wanted to try to escape. Why?”
“So you could create a Forgery of the wall, obviously.”
“But why all of them?” she asked. “Why not just change one block or a few? Why not just make a hole big enough to slip into, creating a tunnel for myself?”
“I . . .” He frowned. “I have no idea.”
Shai rested her hand against the outer wall of her room. It had been painted, though the paint was coming off in several sections. She could feel the separate stones. “All things exist in three Realms, Gaotona. Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual. The Physical is what we feel, what is before us. The Cognitive is how an object is viewed and how it views itself. The Spiritual Realm contains an object’s soul—its essence—as well as the ways it is connected to the things and people around it.”
“You must understand,” Gaotona said, “I don’t subscribe to your pagan superstitions.”
“Yes, you worship the sun instead,” Shai said, failing to keep the amusement out of her voice. “Or, rather, eighty suns—believing that even though each looks the same, a different sun actually rises each day. Well, you wanted to know how Forgery works, and why the emperor’s soul will be so difficult to reproduce. The Realms are important to this.”
“Very well.”
“Here is the point. The longer an object exists as a whole, and the longer it is seen in that state, the stronger its sense of complete identity becomes. That table is made up of various pieces of wood fitted together, but do we think of it that way? No. We see the whole.
“To Forge the table, I must understand it as a whole. The same goes for a wall. That wall has existed long enough to view itself as a single entity. I could, perhaps, have attacked each block separately—they might still be distinct enough—but doing so would be difficult, as the wall wants to act as a whole.”
“The wall,” Gaotona said flatly, “wants to be treated as a whole.”
“Yes.”
“You imply that the wall has a soul.”
“All things do,” she said. “Each object sees itself as something. Connection and intent are vital. This is why, master Arbiter, I can’t simply write down a personality for your emperor, stamp him, and be done. Seven reports I’ve read say his favorite color was green. Do you know why?”
“No,” Gaotona said. “Do you?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Shai said. “I think it was because his brother, who died when Ashravan was six, had always been fond of it. The emperor latched on to it, as it reminds him of his dead sibling. There might be a touch of nationalism to it as well, as he was born in Ukurgi, where the provincial flag is predominantly green.”
Gaotona seemed troubled. “You must know something that specific?”
“Nights, yes! And a thousand things just as detailed. I can get some wrong. I will get some wrong. Most of them, hopefully, won’t matter—they will make his personality a little off, but each person changes day to day in any case. If I get too many wrong, though, the personality won’t matter because the stamp won’t take. At least, it won’t last long enough to do any good. I assume that if your emperor has to be restamped every fifteen minutes, the charade will be impossible to maintain.”
“You assume correctly.”
Shai sat down with a sigh, looking over her notes.
“You said you could do this,” Gaotona said.
“Yes.”
“You’ve done it before, with your own soul.”
“I know my own soul,” she said. “I know my own history. I know what I can change to get the effect I need—and even getting my own Essence Marks right was difficult. Now I not only have to do this for another person, but the transformation must be far more extensive. And I have ninety days left to do it.”
Gaotona nodded slowly.
“Now,” she said, “you should tell me what you’re doing to keep up the pretense that the emperor is still awake and well.”
“We’re doing all that needs to be done.”
“I’m far from confident that you are. I think you’ll find me a fair bit better at deception than most.”
“I think that you will be surprised,” Gaotona said. “We are, after all, politicians.”
“All right, fine. But you are sending food, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Gaotona said. “Three meals are sent to the emperor’s quarters each day. They return to the palace kitchens eaten, though he is, of course, secretly being fed broth. He drinks it when prompted, but stares ahead, as if both deaf and mute.”
“And the chamber pot?”
“He has no control over himself,” Gaotona said, grimacing. “We keep him in cloth diapers.”
“Nights, man! And no one changes a fake chamber pot? Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Maids will gossip, as will guards at the door. You need to consider these things!”
Gaotona had the decency to blush. “I will see that it happens, though I don’t like the idea of someone else entering his quarters. Too many have a chance to discover what has happened to him.”
“Pick someone you trust, then,” Shai said. “In fact, make a rule at the emperor’s doors. No one enters unless they bear a card with your personal signet. And yes, I know why you are opening your mouth to object. I know exactly how well guarded the emperor’s quarters are—that was part of what I studied to break into the gallery. Your security isn’t tight enough, as the assassins proved. Do what I suggest. The more layers of security, the better. If what has happened to the emperor gets out, I have no doubt that I’ll end up back in that cell waiting for execution.”