The Burning White (Lightbringer #5) - Brent Weeks Page 0,124

powerful people see a benefit in playing along.

So Lord Dariush—his name was usually shortened from Dârayavahush—had a name that meant the Rich, Smart, Good, and Perceptive (or Able to See through the Surface of Things to the Truth) Bringer of Justice.

I’m sure the other children had no problems with a boy named that. Here I’d been angry at my mother that my name so easily devolved into the sarcastic ‘Handy Andy’ after a sudden growth spurt out of my youthful rotundity had left me clumsy—a good trade, I’ll grant. Clumsiness can pass, fat is forever. ‘Randy Andy’ came after my first failed attempt at wooing a girl. (Quoting ancient Parian poetry, spoken of in my beloved books as being such a strong aphrodisiac that many kings had banned it, was not, as it turned out, appreciated by the puzzled thirteen-year-old target of my affections, neither in the original language nor in the best translation I could find.) ‘Glossy Rossy’ came during the same lovely oleofacurating pubertal years, and ‘At-a-loss Andross’ was from my first fight at age fourteen, when a lout called me Fart Eater and I’d asked what ‘Fart Eater’ even meant.

It would not be the last time the human race disappointed me. I’d learned then that reflecting the vacuity of the congenitally un-self-aware back to themselves will not inspire a philosophical awakening.

As it turns out, ‘Do you see how stupid that is?’ is a question you can only ask an intelligent person. Or more precisely, an intelligent person who is acting, saying, or believing something stupid. Thus, either one who is intelligent but not brilliant, or one who is young or uneducated or unequipped with formal logical apparatus.

I was indeed at a loss in that fight: lost in thought, thinking these things.

Then, coming to strategic grips with my intellectual discovery and realizing that the present situation called for a different type of solution altogether, I punched the lout across the nose.

Then I sat on his chest, grabbed a handful of his hair in my left hand, and said, ‘That’s Right-Cross Andross to you.’

Then I’d demonstrated my right cross again, careful to hold his head tight so it didn’t rebound off the cobblestones. I wanted to teach him and his friends a lesson, not kill him.

I’d been so disappointed that ‘ Right-Cross Andross’ hadn’t caught on.

‘Cross Ross’ had.

Those stinky, sebaceous little semen secretors.

‘Criss-cross Ross’ came after one of my more maladroit early schemes had failed. That still stung—the failure, not the sophomoric onomatopoeia.

You know, on second thought, best not to remember the teen years.

The Guile memory is not always a gift.

Fortunately, though far-ranging, my mnemonic vacation has been brief. Nor is Lord Dariush one to hurry. And I had the good sense to drift while facing his little painting.

On actually studying it, I now wish I’d begun with my examination first and let my mind wander later.

Barely a foot square, the painting is prominently displayed where one must view it on the way to the solarium gallery’s exit. The technique and colors and sensitivity are exquisite, and the style so idiosyncratic that one might see any painting by this master and know it to be his, regardless of the subject.

But the subject.

What in Orholam’s lowest hell?

“What . . . is . . . this?” I can’t help but ask.

“Some say that Solarch was a Mirror, and this is meant to be art for a Card, though I’ve seen no corroborating evidence of that.”

I don’t think that can be true. This is merely genius. As tragically misplaced and misapplied as it is undeniably, bafflingly superior.

This is a painting that would cause contemporary critics to scoff, his patron to grumble, and his competitors to throw down their brushes in agony and vexation.

Breathed by the greatest wordsmith ever to turn a phrase, this is a poem . . . about a bowel movement. This is the greatest composer of all time making fart jokes instead of penning concertos.

“It’s . . . cute?” I say.

I can’t take my eyes off it. The more I look, the more baffled I am.

“Cute, yes,” Lord Dariush says. “Fat and rather adorable, isn’t it?”

The abuse of talent is so outrageous, I can’t help wondering if it’s purposeful—perhaps Gollaïr, so certain that his own talents were being outstripped, had commissioned this piece simply to waste a few of Solarch’s days on earth.

Some great painters can dash off a masterpiece in a day. Other styles require a year or more. This has the hallmarks of the latter. The paint