"Of a different kind," Thirukedi said.

I found myself speechless, though I could not decide which understanding affected me more: that the Noble I had tasked myself to such careful treatment had relapsed into shameful behavior or that Thirukedi had bothered Himself to learn the details. For what? For this small discussion? Surely I was not so important. What broken pot did He intend me to mend, if it was clear that I had failed with the one I had tried before?

"There is no shame in it," Thirukedi said. "You succeeded in preventing her from transgressing in the same way."

"But not in another," I said, ears flattening.

"No," Thirukedi agreed. "There was a pattern there that you had no opportunity to see. There is no shame in it, Calligrapher; Correction is an art, not a skill. You were made for different tasks."

I sighed, folding my hands before me on the table. "There is yet regret," I said. "That the effort was not enough."

"Sometimes no effort is enough," He said. "I am sending you to the Bleak."

My silence was not the silence of respectful attention, but of shock.

"There," Thirukedi said, "you are to deliver my message to the osulkedi who serves Shame. He has been there the better part of two seasons now, attempting Corrections of those most in need... but it is enough. His services have been requested by House Qenain's gate complex, and it is there you will tell him to go, on my command."

He sipped his tea and finished, "He is the broken pot."

I stared at the finish on his bowl, stunned. Still, I found my voice... for such an incredible assignment demanded precise understanding. "And he is to be mended?"

"By you, yes," Thirukedi replied with a smile in His voice. "Accompany him to Qenain. Observe him, advise him... be to him what you have been to others in need. I suspect that will be sufficient."

"Forgiveness," I whispered. "Thirukedi... an aphorism, no matter how beautifully painted, may not be enough to succor such a soul."

"I suspect not," the Emperor replied. "This is not the work of a single painting. Your duty to him will take time. But mark it, Calligrapher... he is worth the time. He is my osulkedi, just as you are. Not since the first servant of Shame has there been one such as he... and he is shattering. He has given Kherishdar his service for years. If we did not save him, the very Civilization he has broken himself to uphold will not be worthy of him... is it not so?"

I bowed my head. "It is as you say."

"Go," Thirukedi said. "Retrieve him from the Bleak. I have set aside for you the records of his many Corrections... you may read them on the way. Until he is well you have no duty of more paramount importance."

"Yes, Thirukedi," I said. Then, quietly, "What is his name?"

"He is Kor Nai'Nerillin-osulkedi. But as his duty is to Shame, so he has preferred to be called."

(Here, clipped to the pages, is a small piece of paper upon which is written one of the broken pot parables.)

Reck this: Once there was an aridkedi, a country Merchant who specialized in the creation of pots for her small town. She was the sole seller of pots, for no other potter had her talent. Greatly did she please her community, and so she lived well and they benefited by her skill. So great was her skill, in truth, that she mended any of her wares if they cracked, and if that mending did not take, she gave the Ai-Naidari a replacement as an apology for her lack of talent.

The potter was not called upon to give out any replacements, though she was occasionally called upon to mend her works, for they were of such quality they were often used well past when another pot would have been deemed worthless.

One day, however, a client brought her one of her mended pots, which had broken again. She could not believe it had failed, and promised the client he would have the pot again, better than new. And so she fixed the pot, but within days it had broken again. Once more she mended the pot, but it was mere hours before it fell in pieces.

As promised, she gave the Ai-Naidari a new pot without charge... but she returned to the pot and attempted to fix it once again. Each time it failed, she applied herself to its mending.

It came to be that another aridkedi became the merchant of pots for that community. The most talented potter in town had become so obsessed with her failure that she had no more time to make new pots.

This is the tale of the broken pot. Reck it well.

I found the records Thirukedi had spoken of awaiting me on my return to the studio, held in the arms of the coach-master who had come to arrange my trip to the Bleak. We spoke briefly: I would leave tomorrow at dawn, which would bring me to my destination in late afternoon. As I had the habit of rising early it was of no inconvenience to me. I had only to pack for the journey and the trip following to Qenain's Gate complex and my part of this would be done, until I met Shame.

Ah, no, aunera. Do not take it for arrogance, for Shame to wish to be known so. For him to take as title one of Civilization's virtues was not self-aggrandizement, not a way of saying that he alone contained all the virtue of Shame and no other may lay claim to it. Other Ai-Naidar would understand it, correctly, as a sign that he was subordinating himself to that great virtue... that he knew himself to be a part of it, and wished to expose the self-knowledge, that dedication, to others. We assume ourselves always to be part of things, not separate examples. It is why almost all our words are groups, and they must be modified to form the singular. We are the Ai-Naidar, you understand... and I am an Ai-Naidari. The whole always comes first.

But this is digression from what I meant to impart to you, aunera, which was this:

Shame was brilliant.

I had never personally met a priest who served Shame. As I discussed with Thirukedi, my experiences with Correction were few, both as instrument and as recipient. It is so with many Ai-Naidar: we require moderating words at times and we pay reparations as needed, but transgressions against the rules of society are not flagrant, nor so deeply-rooted that they require frequent Correction. That is part of the purpose of having the rules of society set to paper, after all... so that all may know their duties, their responsibilities, and their privileges.

But Kherishdar is an empire spanning three worlds and several colonies, and we are many and our culture old. With so many Ai-Naidar it is inevitable that some will transgress. And for the times when we do, then we call upon those who serve Shame to bring that virtue to us, so that we may once again remember our place and become good members of society.

Correction is not punishment. If it does not bring you to a deeper understanding of your role in Kherishdar, it is meaningless. And here is where Shame excelled. He crafted Corrections that addressed the heart of the transgression... that addressed the impulse that drove it rather than the surface crime. In his own hand, he documented his efforts, and while his commentary was terse and often broken, as if written by a mind speeding too quickly for the hand to follow, still I saw the genius there.

I made myself a cup of golden tea and sat on my studio's window-seat. There among the cushions I made company with the first of Shame's logs, and the sunlight fell on calligraphy so swiftly scrawled it seemed on the verge of unraveling... the first words so dark they were almost illegible, the pen loaded with ink so he would have to stop less frequently to dip, and the last words so pale they were read almost by their indentation in the paper rather than by their color.

I find it difficult to explain Shame's brilliance, but I will make the attempt. Take for instance the entry I found on the sixth page:

MALE, ANATHKEDI, half-brother to head of household well-liked gives permission to be touched, takes it away without warning...house Head thinks he is skittish of touch, needs touch-friend, learn to trust—??

Have studied, done interviews. Not trust issue, is, in fact, contempt for those he permitted. Did not think enough of them to withhold touch, did not think well enough of them to withdraw it properly.

Dressed him in no-one's clothes... took him to other household, had him shadow those in caste-ranks he thought so little of. Needed a week... no longer treats those caste-ranks badly. head of household pleased. Checked a season later... still behaving well. head of household offered a sasrithi.

This incident was remarkable in that it first required something not all Ai-Naidar are capable of: the ability to think as other castes do. I understand the duties of those above the Wall of Birth, but I do not truly empathize with them. Even a month's worth of study would not have acquainted me well enough with a Noble's mind to permit me to make the leap of understanding Shame has made here: that the Noble was not, in fact, shy of being intimate with others, but had fallen prey to an emotion poisonous in the nobility and regality, one so destructive to their purpose in society that it rarely has opportunity to flourish: contempt.

I would never, ever, have dared imagine a Noble capable of contempt.

Having come to this startling conclusion merely by observation, Shame then crafted a Correction that required the abasement of the noble completely. It is difficult for me to imagine the confidence and power of personality it would take to convince a Noble to bow his head to such a penance. Most Corrections are intimate conversations between the instrument and the recipient—revasil ekain, we call those, Corrections made with scenarios, with words. Vabanil, the Corrections of actions, are rarer, more potent, and more difficult to conceive and enact, since one of their most prominent features is that the recipient must be receptive to what he will learn.

And it was a fitting Correction, at that.

So then: thrice unusual, Shame, once for being able to be another Ai-Naidari simply by watching him, twice for bringing a Noble to a difficult Correction of action and thrice for having conceived one so well-suited to the error.

The fourth and final, of course, was that it worked so well that the Head of household gave him a sasrithi, a token allowing him to ask a future favor. Such tokens are not lightly given from a noble Head of household.

One of you asked, why it is that I found it a matter so piercing to be seen so clearly by Thirukedi, why I was honored. I must answer, then, that to be seen with understanding eyes requires not just great insight, but also great compassion. One might not see at all, lacking the former; or see and deny what is seen, lacking the latter. I began to suspect, from my first examination of these journals, that Shame… Shame had both these virtues, and they are rare when found together, and more precious thereby.

I continued reading as the day waned, rising only to bring a lamp to my window-seat. Though terse, each entry evoked a self-contained world in all its nuance: a twisted spirit or ungentle mind, the circumstances that had brought it to that sickness, and through each, like a thread of incense, the presence of the osulkedi, Shame's servant, who led each supplicant back to righteousness and cleansed their spirits. It was a record of redemption found in the pain of expiation and the darkness of confession, and I found it haunting, unnerving and irresistible.

I fell asleep there, leaning back against the pillows and twisted with knees raised so as not to drop the book from my lap; when I woke, my hand was resting on the edge, protective. I had neither packed nor washed in preparation for my journey, and hastened to both tasks, yet I am ashamed to say I kept the carriage-master waiting.

"Haste is not needful," the carriage-master said, his speech politely Abased: he was irimkedi, a Servant to the Emperor and several castes my junior. It was for him to accept such delays with aplomb, just as it was for me to not make such errors of ill courtesy. I sighed and moved so his assistants could load my trunk, then stepped up into the carriage with one of Shame's logs held against my chest. While I had the sense of his work from the first, I could not deny my compulsion. I wanted to know more. The carriage rocked beneath the boots of the driver as he climbed aboard and then we were underway. Settling into the pillowed bench, I opened the next volume and resumed reading.

The first mention of blood made me put the book down. I stared out the window; we had passed out of the capital and were now among the soft green fields outside it. The sunlight falling through the carriage window onto my wrist felt very real, very bright... the breeze, fresh with the newness of spring, did not seem to co-exist with the words in the entry I'd just read.