It’s a lie. It’s all a lie.
It’s better than the alternative. Breathe. This isn’t for you. You want to go out there and tell those drafters waiting for you that their entire lives are a fraud? That their service is a waste? That Orholam doesn’t see their sacrifice? That what they’ve done, what they’ve given, doesn’t matter? Everyone dies, Gavin, don’t rob it of meaning for these people. Don’t make them see themselves as worthless. Their sacrifice as empty. All life as meaningless.
It was the same debate he had with himself every year. He’d even brought a bucket with him into the chapel, along with extra incense. He threw up, some years.
There was a knock at the door of the chapel.
“Lord Prism, it’s time.”
Kip wasn’t blindfolded the next night. Instead, they gave him darkened glasses, bound them around the back of his head, pulling them tight against his eyes, and ripped the sleeves off his shirt. It would be hard to draft, and anyone around him would have ample warning.
“Apparently there’s something they want us to see,” Karris said as the guards, Mirrormen and drafters, hustled them out of the wagon they’d been sharing.
They were brought to a security perimeter out away from the tents. It was oddly separate from the rest of the camp, given far too much room. The perimeter itself was simply a rope strung between posts pounded quickly into the ground, but it was huge—and no one from the camp even came close to violating the circle. Inside, looking tiny compared to the size of the circle, was a crowd gathered before a platform. The sun had fully set, but it wasn’t yet dark.
“They don’t want to be overheard,” Karris said. “Tells you how crazy they are. They’re going to rally the troops with some idiocy any norm would mock outright.”
Norm? Oh, a person who couldn’t draft. Wait, that meant…
As they were walked closer, Kip saw that his inference was correct: every single person here was a drafter. There had to be eight hundred or a thousand drafters here!
“Orholam,” Karris breathed. “There must be five hundred drafters here.”
So I can’t count, so what?
But even Kip’s bravado melted away as they got closer. His and Karris’s tenders pushed them into the crowd, and the first person they pushed out of the way stared at them with wild green eyes. His halos were cracked, snakes of green wriggling through the whites of his eyes.
Kip felt like he was passing through a menagerie. It seemed almost everyone light-skinned enough for it to show had skin stained by luxin. Green, blue, red, yellow, orange, even purple. When he looked into the superviolet, the superviolet drafters stood out like beacons. They’d worked designs into their cloaks, their armor, even their skin—all invisible to anyone but other superviolets. Adjusting his eyes, Kip saw that the sub-reds had done the same, etching dragons, phoenixes, whorls, and flames onto their clothes. Blues wore spikes curling like rams’ horns, or knife edges along their forearms. They passed an orange. The man looked normal except he’d slicked back his hair with orange luxin as if it were hair oil, and the whites of his eyes were solid orange, leaving no differentiation from white to iris, only the tiny black dots of his pupils marring that perfect color. A green clad only in leaves hissed at them; then she laughed. A menagerie indeed, except Kip was in the cage with the animals.
They were brought all the way to the front. The crowd was arrayed in front of a stone rising out of the ground, its surfaces worn smooth by wind and rain, but tall enough to be a platform. As Kip and Karris arrived, a man climbed up on the rock wearing a hooded cloak. He reached the top of the stone, threw back his hood, and tore off the cloak, throwing it aside as if it disgusted him.
The man’s entire body glowed in the gathering dark. He stood, defiant, silent, legs braced. He extended a hand toward the crowd, and at every five paces, in a wave, torches burst into flame, bathing them in light. Last, torches ringing his stone platform caught fire, and Kip saw that the man was made entirely of luxin. And he was glowing from within.
All around, drafters were dropping to their knees before Lord Omnichrome. But not all of them. Those who stood looked awkward, conflicted. For those who bowed weren’t just bowing, they were pressing their faces to the ground. This was pure religious devotion.
“Don’t bow,” Karris said. “That’s no god.”
“What is he?” Kip whispered.
“My brother.”
Lord Omnichrome extended his hands. “Please, no. Brothers, sisters, stand. Stand with me. We have fallen prostrate before men for far too long.”
The orange drafter, the artist Aheyyad, fell prostrate before Gavin. He was to be the first of the night. It was an honored place, and Aheyyad deserved honor. Real honor, not this travesty. But there was no way out. There never was.
Gavin stepped forward. “Stand, my child,” he said. Usually, when he called the drafters “my child” he felt sardonic. But Aheyyad was a child, or at least barely a man.
Aheyyad stood. He met Gavin’s eyes, then quickly looked away.
“You have something to say,” Gavin said. “This is the time.” Some drafters felt the need to confess sins or secrets. Some made requests. Some just wanted to express a frustration, a fear, a doubt. Depending on the number of drafters to be Freed before dawn, each year Gavin took as much time with each drafter as he could.
“I failed you, Lord Prism,” Aheyyad said. “I failed my family. They always said I was the son who could have been great. Instead, I’m a waste. An addict. I’m the gifted one who couldn’t handle Orholam’s gift.” Bitter tears rolled down his cheeks. He still couldn’t look Gavin in the eye.
“Look at me,” Gavin said. He took the young man’s face in his hands. “You joined me in the greatest work I have ever done. You did what I, the Prism, couldn’t do. Any man who has seen a sunset knows that Orholam values beauty. You made that wall as beautiful and terrible as Orholam himself. What you did will stand for a thousand years.”
“But we lost!”
“We lost,” Gavin acknowledged. “My failure, not yours. Kingdoms come and go, but that wall will protect thousands yet unborn. And it will inspire hundreds of thousands more. I couldn’t have done that. Only you could. You, Aheyyad, have made beauty. Orholam gave you a gift, and you have given a gift to the world. That doesn’t sound like failure to me. Your family will be proud. I am proud of you, Aheyyad. I will never forget you. You have inspired me.”
A quick grin flickered over the young man’s face. “It is a pretty great piece, huh?”
“Not bad for your first try,” Gavin said.
Aheyyad laughed, his whole demeanor changed. He was a light indeed. A gift to the world, beautiful and so burning with life.
“Are you ready, son?” Gavin asked.
“Gavin Guile,” the young man said. “My Lord Prism. You, sir, are a great man, and a great Prism. Thank you. I am ready.”
“Aheyyad Brightwater, Orholam gave you a gift,” Gavin began. The last name was the invention of the moment. In Paria, the only people given two names were great men and women, and sometimes their children. From the sudden tears welling in Aheyyad’s eyes and the deep breath he took, his chest swelling with pride, Gavin knew he’d said the perfect thing. “And you have stewarded well the gift he gave you. It is time to lay your burden down, Aheyyad Brightwater. You gave the full measure. Your service will not be forgotten, but your failures are hereby blotted out, forgotten, erased. Well done, true and faithful servant. You have fulfilled the Pact.”