“It up. Yes, the irony is that you let the prohibitions instituted by my idiot self control my true self when it finally has opportunity to emerge.”

“You weren’t an idiot when you—”

“Here,” Taravangian said, proffering the sheet of math problems to him. “Done.”

“All but the last on this sheet,” Dukar said, taking it in cautious fingers. “Do you want to try that one, or…”

“No need. I know I can’t solve it; too bad. Make quick with the requisite formalities. I have work to do.”

Adrotagia had entered with Malata, the Dustbringer; they were growing in companionship as Adrotagia attempted to secure an emotional bond with this lesser Diagram member who had suddenly been thrust into its upper echelons, an event predicted by the Diagram—which explained that the Dustbringers would be the Radiants most likely to accept their cause, and at that Taravangian felt proud, for actually locating one of their number who could bond a spren had not, by any means, been an assured accomplishment.

“He’s smart,” Dukar said to Mrall. The bodyguard was the final adjudicator of Taravangian’s daily capacity—an infuriating check necessary to prevent his stupid side from ruining anything, but a mere annoyance when Taravangian was like this.

Energized.

Awake.

Brilliant.

“He’s almost to the danger line,” Dukar said.

“I can see that,” Adrotagia said. “Vargo, are you—”

“I feel perfect. Can’t we be done with this? I can interact, and make policy decisions, and need no restrictions.”

Dukar nodded, reluctantly, in agreement. Mrall assented. Finally!

“Get me a copy of the Diagram,” Taravangian said, pushing past Adrotagia. “And some music, something relaxing but not too slow. Clear the chambers of nonessential persons, empty the bedroom of furniture, and don’t interrupt me.”

It took them a frustratingly long time to accomplish, almost half an hour, which he spent on his balcony, contemplating the large space for a garden outside and wondering how big it was. He needed measurements.…

“Your room is prepared, Your Majesty,” Mrall said.

“Thank you, Uscritic one, for your leave to go into my own bedroom. Have you been drinking salt?”

“… What?”

Taravangian strode through the small room beside the balcony and into his bedroom, then breathed deeply, pleased to find it completely empty of furniture—only four blank stone walls, no window, though it had a strange rectangular outcropping along the back wall, like a high step, which Maben was dusting.

Taravangian seized the maid by the arm and hauled her out, to where Adrotagia was bringing him a thick book bound in hogshide. A copy of the Diagram. Excellent. “Measure the available gardening area of the stone field outside our balcony and report it to me.”

He carried the Diagram into the room, and then shut himself into blissful self-company, in which he arranged a diamond in each corner—a light to accompany that of his own spark, which shone in truth where others could not venture—and as he finished, a small choir of children started to sing Vorin hymns outside the room per his request.

He breathed in, out, bathed in light and encouraged by song, his hands to the sides; capable of anything, he was consumed by the satisfaction of his own working mind, unclogged and flowing freely for the first time in what seemed like ages.

He opened the Diagram. In it, Taravangian finally faced something greater than himself: a different version of himself.

The Diagram—which was the name for this book and for the organization that studied it—had not originally been written merely on paper, for on that day of majestic capacity, Taravangian had annexed every surface to hold his genius—from the cabinetry to the walls—and while so doing had invented new languages to better express ideas that had to be recorded, by necessity, in a medium less perfect than his thoughts. Even as the intellect he was today, the sight of that writing enforced humility; he leafed through pages packed with tiny scrawls, copied—spots, scratches, and all—from the original Diagram room, created during what felt like a different lifetime, as alien to him now as was the drooling idiot he sometimes became.

More alien. Everyone understood stupidity.

He knelt on the stones, ignoring his aches of body, reverently leafing through the pages. Then he slipped out his belt knife, and began to cut it up.

The Diagram had not been written on paper, and interacting with its transcription bound into codex form must necessarily have influenced their thinking, so to obtain true perspective—he now decided—he needed the flexibility of seeing the pieces, then arranging them in new ways, for his thoughts had not been locked down on that day and he should not perceive them as such today.

He was not as brilliant as he’d been on that day, but he didn’t need to be. That day, he’d been God. Today, he could be God’s prophet.

He arranged the cut-out pages, and found numerous new connections simply by how the sheets were placed next to each other—indeed, this page here actually connected to this page here … yes. Taravangian cut them both down the middle, dividing sentences. When he put the halves of separate pages beside one another, they made a more complete whole. Ideas he’d missed before seemed to rise from the pages like spren.

Taravangian did not believe in any religion, for they were unwieldy things, designed to fill gaps in human understanding with nonsensical explanations, allowing people to sleep well at night, granting them a false sense of comfort and control and preventing them from stretching further for true understanding, yet there was something strangely holy about the Diagram, the power of raw intelligence, the only thing man should worship, and oh how little most understood it—oh, how little they deserved it—in handling purity while corrupting it with flawed understanding and silly superstitions. Was there a way he could prevent any but the most intelligent from learning to read? That would accomplish so much good; it seemed insane that nobody had implemented such a ban, for while Vorinism forbade men to read, that merely prevented an arbitrary half of the population from handling information, when it was the stupid who should be barred.

He paced in the room, then noted a scrap of paper under the door; it contained the answer to his question about the size of the farming platform. He looked over the calculations, listening with half an ear to voices outside, almost overwhelmed by the singing children.

“Uscritic,” Adrotagia said, “seems to refer to Uscri, a figure from a tragic poem written seventeen hundred years ago. She drowned herself after hearing her lover had died, though the truth was that he’d not died at all, and she misunderstood the report about him.”

“All right…” Mrall said.

“She was used in following centuries as an example of acting without information, though the term eventually came to simply mean ‘stupid.’ The salt seems to refer to the fact that she drowned herself in the sea.”

“So it was an insult?” Mrall asked.

“Using an obscure literary reference. Yes.” He could almost hear Adrotagia’s sigh. Best to interrupt her before she thought on this further.

Taravangian flung open the door. “Gum paste for sticking paper to this wall. Fetch it for me, Adrotagia.”