and eyebrows shaved—stopped her with a hand to the arm.
“Tests first,” Mrall said.
Taravangian looked up, meeting the large man’s gaze. Mrall could loom over a mountain and intimidate the wind itself. Everyone assumed he was Taravangian’s head bodyguard. The truth was more disturbing.
Mrall was the one who got to decide whether Taravangian would spend the day as king or as a prisoner.
“Surely you can let him eat first!” Maben said.
“This is an important day,” Mrall said, voice low. “I would know the result of the testing.”
“But—”
“It is his right to demand this, Maben,” Taravangian said. “Let us be on with it.”
Mrall stepped back, and the testers approached, a group of three stormwardens in deliberately esoteric robes and caps. They presented a series of pages covered in figures and glyphs. They were today’s variation on a sequence of increasingly challenging mathematical problems devised by Taravangian himself on one of his better days.
He picked up his pen with hesitant fingers. He did not feel stupid, but he rarely did. Only on the worst of days did he immediately recognize the difference. On those days, his mind was thick as tar, and he felt like a prisoner in his own mind, aware that something was profoundly wrong.
Today wasn’t one of those, fortunately. He wasn’t a complete idiot. At worst, he’d just be very stupid.
He set to his task, solving what mathematical problems he could. It took the better part of an hour, but during the process, he was able to gauge his capacity. As he had suspected, he was not terribly smart—but he was not stupid, either. Today . . . he was average.
That would do.
He turned over the problems to the stormwardens, who consulted in low voices. They turned to Mrall. “He is fit to serve,” one proclaimed. “He may not offer binding commentary on the Diagram, but he may interact outside of supervision. He may change government policy so long as there is a three-day delay before the changes take effect, and he may also freely pass judgment in trials.”
Mrall nodded, looking to Taravangian. “Do you accept this assessment and these restrictions, Your Majesty?”
“I do.”
Mrall nodded, then stepped back, allowing Maben to set out Taravangian’s morning meal.
The trio of stormwardens tucked away the papers he’d filled out, then they retreated to their own cabins. The testing was an extravagant procedure, and consumed valuable time each morning. Still, it was the best way he had found to deal with his condition.
Life could be tricky for a man who awoke each morning with a different level of intelligence. Particularly when the entire world might depend upon his genius, or might come crashing down upon his idiocy.
“How is it out there?” Taravangian asked softly, picking at his meal, which had gone cold during the testing.
“Horrible,” Mrall said with a grin. “Just as we wanted it.”
“Do not take pleasure in suffering,” Taravangian replied. “Even when it is a work of our hands.” He took a bite of the mush. “Particularly when it is a work of our hands.”
“As you wish. I will do so no more.”
“Can you really change that easily?” Taravangian asked. “Turn off your emotions on a whim?”
“Of course,” Mrall said.
Something about that tickled at Taravangian, some thread of interest. If he had been in one of his more brilliant states, he might have seized upon it—but today, he sensed thought seeping away like water between fingers. Once, he had fretted about these missed opportunities, but he had eventually made his peace. Days of brilliance—he had come to learn—brought their own problems.
“Let me see the Diagram,” he said. Anything to distract from this slop they insisted on feeding him.
Mrall stepped aside, allowing Adrotagia—head of Taravangian’s scholars—to approach, bearing a thick, leatherbound volume. She set it onto the table before Taravangian, then bowed.
Taravangian rested his fingers upon the leatherbound cover, feeling a moment of . . . reverence? Was that right? Did he revere anything anymore? God was dead, after all, and Vorinism therefore a sham.
This book, though, was holy. He opened it to one of the pages marked with a reed. Inside were scribbles.
Frenetic, bombastic, majestic scribbles that had been painstakingly copied from the walls of his former bedroom. Sketches laid atop one another, lists of numbers that seemed to make no sense, lines upon lines upon lines of script written in a cramped hand.
Madness. And genius.
Here and there, Taravangian could find hints that this writing was his own. The way he wiggled a line, the way he wrote along the edge of