"Of course," I said, since the painting was well into the tacky-to-dry stage.
Shame lifted the paper and turned it so he could examine the word's reflection; I could see his eyes moving from one implied figure to the next, studying their expressions. He turned it right side up and did it again. To save myself from having to hide my flattered expression during these perlustrations, I had unearthed one of my small sketchbooks and was at work with a pencil. Drawing flowers, inevitably; someone had entered our chambers in the morning and replaced the honeyfletch with lilac-throated star-of-mornings. The pinbrambles remained; they did not seem as like to wilt as the honeyfletch had.
"I watched him paint it," Ajan said to his master. "I've never seen anything like it."
"I imagine not," Shame murmured and set it down. He glanced across the room at me. "So you have divined the root of the error in Qenain."
"The lord," I said. "How else? Everyone is affected by him."
"What did you learn?" Shame asked.
"That the observers heard him fighting with their lead; that he had asked something unspeakable of him, but none of them knew what," I said. I looked up at Shame, who had returned to studying the painting. "He is away, isn't he?"
"The lord? Yes, to the outworld, where he is overseeing the purchases there personally," Shame said. "When he returns..."
I flicked my ears back and tried not to finish that sentence in my head. What would it take to Correct such a man? We did not even know his error in all its specifics... though I knew Shame would have it out of him, one way or another. "Do you know when?"
"No," Shame said. "And neither does anyone else."
I frowned. "That seems... odd."
"Stressful, maybe, but not odd," Ajan offered, "There are masters who do not keep regular schedules, or who are apt to go off on their own with little warning. I wouldn't know anything about that." He smiled, the picture of innocence.
"As he said," Shame said, eyeing his Guardian with a wry mouth. "I would not expect the lord to keep to a schedule in work like this."
"So what do we do?" I wondered.
"Paint more!" Ajan exclaimed.
Shame laughed, then said to me, "Wait, Farren. We will have to wait."
"I suppose we could not chase him to the outworld ourselves," I murmured, evoking a very curious, sharp glance from my counterpart.
"An option of last resort," he said at last. "But an option. You would be willing?"
"Thirukedi sent us here," I said, uneasy. "If the lord remains out of reach, it is our duty to do... something, is it not?"
"So it is," Shame said. And then suddenly, "Do you play rivers and bridges?"
"I have, now and then," I said, startled by the change of topic.
"Then let us while away the dareleni," Shame said, meeting my eyes with amusement.
There was nothing for it, then, but to bring out the board and the playing pieces and settle to the game. As expected, I did better playing the river side than the bridge; the rules for the rivers seemed more natural to me, with their evocation of fluid and predictable reaction. Shame played both sides well, which I also expected. What else from a man who could think so like a Noble he could Correct one, imitate a Noble well enough to inspire allegiance from his servants... and then turn around and give surcease to the lowest Servant?
Setting up for a fourth game, Shame said, "We have learned nothing new from this, have we."
I snorted. "The game? No, of course not. Were we supposed to?"
"Everything," Shame said with some of that focused intent of his, "tells you something about a person."
I thought of his exchange with Ajan about the ribbon bleach and watched him place the pieces. "Doesn't it become burdensome? Forever examining everything that way?"
"Can you look at the world without subconsciously trying to mix a palette for it?" Shame asked.
I paused, then flicked my ears outward. "That was well-played." Rallying myself, I added, "And suggestive."
"Of what?" he asked, and turned the board to face me.
"Of how you believe others perceive the world," I said. "As a series of... biased perceptions."
"Bias implies untruth," Shame said, taking up a bridge. "I would say that how we perceive the world is colored by our ishas. Is that not the way of Kherishdar?"
I sat back, eyed him. "Philosophy."
"Unavoidably," he answered. "Life is philosophy, Farren. Even when we give it no name and don't examine it, it permeates our lives, our beliefs, our choices."
"So is your task an adjustment of people's philosophies?" I said.
"No," he said, quiet. "My task is a reminder of the philosophy that joins us all. That is the key to everything, osulkedi. We are wedded by our common beliefs, a philosophical underpinning that rules us all. Without it, we would be... isolate."
I quelled a shudder.
"I bring people home," Shame said.
"Then what do I do?" I wondered, voice low.
He smiled. "You make people glad to live there."
