fee disputes on Big Jasper. There were even queues for nobles—although there were many more clerks staffing that one than any of the others. The room had a busy hum, but despite the crowd, it was obvious that the Chromeria ran like a well-oiled mill. The people were impatient but not angry, bored but not surly.
Commander Ironfist led Kip to a desk with a single clerk, and no queue at all. “All the rest of this year’s darks were admitted weeks ago.”
“Darks?” Kip asked.
“That’s what people like you are called. Unofficially. Supplicants, officially: you want to be part of the Chromeria, but you aren’t yet. So you’re a dark. Darks, dims, glims, gleams, beams. But you don’t need to remember any of that right now.”
Kip opened his mouth, shut it. Ironfist said nothing until they reached the desk. The clerk, obviously daydreaming, sat bolt upright when he noticed Commander Ironfist.
“Yes, Commander? How may I assist you?”
“I have a supplicant for immediate testing.”
“Immediate as in…”
“Now.”
The clerk’s throat bobbed. “Yes, Commander. Supplicant’s name?”
“Kip. Kip Guile,” Ironfist said.
The clerk grabbed his quill, began writing, got halfway, froze. “Guile as in…?”
“As in, no one needs to hear it from you. Is that a problem?” Ironfist asked.
“No, sir. I’ll just go talk to my superiors. You could go ahead up to the testing room. I’m sure the testers will be along presently.” With a quick bob of his head, the clerk got up and ran to a back office.
“I understand the rest, but what’s a glim?” Kip ask as they climbed the stairs together. He trod on his sagging pant leg, which had fallen lower as he climbed the stairs, and he almost pitched forward on his face. He cleared his throat and hiked up his pants. Life would be so much easier if he had a waist.
“A glimmer,” Ironfist said.
Ah, dark, dim, glimmer, gleam, beam. A light progression, then.
Ironfist said, “Now quiet. This is supposed to be solemn. You go into the room and don’t say anything until your testing is finished. Got it?”
Kip almost said yes, then nodded instead. This might be harder than he had thought. Ironfist gestured to the door, and Kip walked in. Ironfist closed the door behind him.
The room was utterly plain. One wall curved slightly inward, so Kip guessed that was the outer wall of the tower. Other than that irregularity, the room was a square, ten paces wide, all white stone with a single wood table and a single wood chair. The room was lit by a strange white crystal set into the wall, the same kind Kip had seen in all the halls and even, now that he thought of it, in the great room downstairs with all the queues. Kip flopped into the chair. It had been an exhausting week. Had it only been yesterday that he’d been skimming across the waves, that he’d tried to drown, tried to sail? Had it only been a few days since… No, Kip wasn’t going to think about that. Too jagged. Too heavy. He’d be blubbering again if he wasn’t careful.
He’d been waiting for several hours when he heard the muffled exchange of angry words from the hall. That was definitely Ironfist, laying into somebody. Kip swallowed hard. He wanted to get up and eavesdrop, but he knew that with his luck as soon as he got to the door it would open.
Whatever the argument had been about, it was over as quickly as it began. The door didn’t open. Kip waited. And waited. He was just starting to get tired, eyes drooping, when the door popped open.
A man of perhaps thirty, wearing red spectacles hung from a red cord around his neck, came in. He was clearly furious. Apparently not the winner of the argument, then. “Darks will stand!” he snarled.
Kip shot to his feet. His chair skittered back, caught its legs, and went crashing to the floor. Kip flinched, smiled weakly in apology, and picked up the chair.
The man continued staring at him, his mouth a tight white line. He had a large hooked nose and the deep olive skin of an Atashian, though he was beardless, but it was the eyes that captured Kip’s attention. The brown eyes were interrupted by a hard circle of royal red in the middle of the iris. Scarlet streaks like sunbeams pierced the rest of the brown irises. Kip put the chair back as he’d found it, looked back to the man, and got nothing, no hint of what