Kip smiled. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"You'll see," Gavin said. "How are your studies?"
"I don't know that anything I've done yet counts as studying," Kip said. He scrunched his face. "Liv was barely beginning to explain how drafters' dependence on will makes for a lot of dangerous men when her father came in."
"What'd she say?"
"Well, nothing. I didn't really understand it, and she didn't get the chance to explain."
Gavin turned into an alley to help them bypass the crowded streets surrounding the water market. "Very few men are superchromats, Kip. Even I'm not a superchromat, though Dazen was, so apparently it runs in the family. If you want to draft something that will endure, you have to draft the exact middle of the spectrum you're working with. You want to make a blue sword that will last years after you draft it? It has to be perfect, and of course, you have to keep it out of light, but that's a different topic. Because men, aside from the few exceptions, can't do that-can't draft in the exact middle of a color, not can't keep it out of the light, obviously. Ahem, that is, if men want to make anything permanent, they have to add will. Makes it sound like it's meat you add to a stew, doesn't it? Hmm. I don't teach much, obviously. Let me try this." Gavin appeared perfectly heedless of the dark corners they were passing and the acquisitive eyes that followed them. But then, once any acquisitive eyes alit on Ironfist, they found other things to study in a hurry.
"Every time you draft, you use your will. You have to decide that something totally outlandish, weird, unnatural-seeming is going to happen, and you're going to make it happen. In other words, you decide to do magic. Now, the more outlandish it is, the harder it is to believe you can really do it. Or to put it another way, the more will it takes. You with me?"
"Makes sense so far," Kip said.
"Good. Now, blue sword." Gavin lifted a hand from beneath his cloak. His hand was solid blue, and as Kip watched, blue luxin blossomed from it. Gelled, solidified, hardened into the form of a blue sword. Gavin handed it to Kip.
Kip took it, feeling self-conscious as they passed through an intersection with another alley and he was bearing the blade like he was following it to his destiny. "Uh," he said, but then he felt the hilt go slippery. A moment later, the blade drooped, broke off the hilt of its own weight, and splatted on the dirty cobblestones of the alley. There was a light shimmer of blue, and then nothing but blue dust. The same happened moments later to the hilt in Kip's hand, leaving only that gritty blue dust.
"What's the dust?" Kip asked.
"A later lesson," Gavin said. "I'm having trouble teaching the basics as it is. The point for you is to imagine I'd drafted you a plow instead of a sword. Great, it works while the drafter is at your farm, but ten minutes after he leaves, all you've got is dust, literally. Not helpful. This is why superchromats are heavily recruited by all satrapies."
"So they can make plows?"
"Not all magic is for fun and dismemberment, Kip. In fact, most drafters spend their whole lives doing practical things like making plows. For every artist, there's ten men who repair roofs with green luxin. Anyway, men-and the women who aren't lucky enough to be superchromats-can cover their failings with will."
"You mean just by trying harder."
"Pretty much."
"That doesn't sound so bad. So they try harder. Liv was making men among drafters sound like slaves compared to the freeborn."
"More like dogs, I'd say," Gavin said.
"Huh?"
"Well, they are second-class because using will constantly wears you. It's exhausting. And will isn't just effort, it's belief and effort together. So if you need belief to do magic, what happens to the man who loses all his belief in himself?"
"He can't do magic?" Kip guessed.
"Exactly. That's half of what all the hierarchy among drafters is about. Satraps and satrapahs treat drafters like they're Orholam's gift to the world not just because they are Orholam's gift, but because if the drafter doesn't believe he's special and you call on him to do magic, he won't be able to do it. Drafter who can't draft? Useless."
"I never thought of that." So the rigid hierarchy wasn't simply because they could? Kip guessed that this wasn't the way Liv's tutors had explained things to her.
"Of course, it's a circle that spirals on itself. You're a satrap, you've paid a fortune for a bichrome drafter, well, now you've invested so much in him that you can't afford for him to fail you, so you have to reinforce his feelings of superiority and pamper him, give him slaves and so forth. It makes the more powerful drafters more and more difficult to manage."
There was a cough from behind them. Ironfist.
"Commander," Gavin asked, "you have something to add to this discussion?"
"Little dust in my throat. Apologies," Ironfist said, sounding not at all apologetic.
"Problem with will is, we think that the more will a man or woman expends in their life, the faster they die. Or it could merely be that men or women with great will tend to draft a lot more. Either way, their careers are spectacular. And short. It's probably why male drafters don't tend to live as long as women do, expending will all the time in order to have their drafting be useful. Side effect is that among the most powerful drafters, we have a lot of people with titanic will. Or, to put it bluntly, a lot of arrogant assholes. Especially the men. And madmen. Delusional people tend to believe in what they're doing. Makes them powerful."
"So I'm going to be spending my time with crazy, arrogant bastards."
"Well, many of them are of the finest blood."
Oh, that's right, I'm the only bastard around here. "I thought being a drafter was going to be fun," Kip said.
"Grunts never get to scull," Gavin said.
"Grunts?"
"Grunts, mundies, norms, grubbers, clods, shovelslingers, blinders, dulls, scrubs, mouth breathers, slumps, the benighted-there's lots of names. Most of them not as nice as those. They all mean the same thing: non-drafters."
"So what about you?" Kip asked, as they finally left the alleys. They crossed a wide, peaked stone bridge over the Umber River.
Gavin looked at him. "You mean what nasty names do they call me?"
"No!" Oh, Gavin was teasing. Kip scowled. "Your eyes don't"-he looked for the right word-"halo. So does that mean you can draft as much as you want?"
"I tire like anyone, but yes. For a time I can draft every day as much as I can handle and it won't burn me out. Someday, most likely five years from now, I will start to lose colors. It will take about a year, and then I'll die."
"Why five years from now?" Kip asked. It was still odd to him how matter-of-fact drafters were about their impending deaths. I guess they have time to get used to the idea.
"It always happens on multiples of seven from when a Prism begins his reign. I've made it sixteen years, so I have until twenty-one. Long time for a Prism."
"Oh. Why multiples of seven?"
"Because there's seven colors, seven virtues, seven satrapies? Because Orholam likes the number seven? Truth is, no one knows."
They walked on through streets swelling with people starting their morning errands, and those eager to get as much work done as possible before the heat of the day. They approached a long line of workers bottlenecked at the Lover's Gate, heading out to work outside the city. Though Kip didn't even see him draft, Gavin turned and handed him a green rock. Not a rock. Green luxin, perfectly the size to fit in Kip's palm. Kip took it, confused.
"You bring your specs?" Gavin asked. He handed Kip a square board, not a foot on each side, perfectly white.
Kip produced them. Smiled weakly. I have a bad feeling about what he's going to tell me next.
"Your turn. You can have lunch-or dinner or possibly breakfast-when you make a green luxin ball of your own. You've got the spectacles, a white reflector, plenty of sun, and an example. I couldn't make it easier if I tried."