Brent Weeks Lightbringer 01 The Black Prism

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.It s not quite that simple, of course, but that s the gist.It sounded plenty complicated enough. But during the war& ? I was appointed promachos.Absolute rule during wartime.Makes everyone nervous, in case thepromachos decides that the war lasts forever. But you gave it up? It was a dumb question, Kip realized.But Gavin smiled. And wonder of wonders, I haven t been assassinated.The Blackguard doesn t onlyprotect Prisms, Kip.They protect the world from us.Orholam.Gavin s world sounded more dangerous than what Kip had just left. So you ll teach me todraft? he asked.It was the best of all worlds.He would learn what he needed to learn, without being seton a strange island alone.And who could teach drafting better than the Prism himself? Of course.But first there s some things we have to do.Kip looked longingly at the sausage rope Gavin still held. Like eat more?Chapter 26By noon the next day, Kip had fully swallowed his teasing about a fast boat.They were flying across thewaves at mind-boggling speed, and Gavin had enclosed the boat, muttering something about that womanand her ideas, so now, despite the speed, they could speak. So you ve used green, Gavin said, as if it were normal for him to be leaning hard forward, skin entirelyred, feet strapped in, hands gripping two translucent blue posts, throwing great plugs of red luxin downinto the water, sweating profusely, muscles knotted. That s a good color.Everyone needs greendrafters. I think I can see heat, too.And Master Danavis said I m a superchromat. What?Page 92 Master Danavis was the dyer in town.Sometimes I d help him.He had trouble matching the reds aswell as the alcaldesa s husband liked. Corvan Danavis? Corvan Danavis lived in Rekton? Y-yes. Slender, about forty, beaded mustache, couple freckles, and some red in his hair? No mustache, Kip said. But, otherwise.Gavin swore quietly. You know ourdyer ? Kip asked, incredulous. You could say that.He fought against me in the war.I m more curious about you seeing heat.Tell mewhat you do. Master Danavis taught me to look at the edges of my vision.Sometimes when I do, people glow,especially their bare skin, armpits, and& you know. Groin? Right. Kip cleared his throat. Blind me, Gavin said.He chuckled. What? What s that mean? We ll see later. Later? Like what, a year or two? Why do all adults talk to me like I m stupid? Fair enough.Unless you re truly freakish, you re likely a discontiguous bichrome.Kip blinked.A what what? I said I m not stupid; ignorant s different. And I meant later today, Gavin said. Oh. There are two special cases in drafting well, there are lots of special cases.Orholam s greatbloody I ve never tried to teach the early stuff.Have you ever wondered if you were the only realperson in the world, and everything and everyone else was just your imagination?Kip blushed.Back home, he d even tried tostop imagining Ram, hoping the boy would simply cease toexist. I guess so. Right, it s one of a puerile mind s first flirtations with egoism.No offense.Page 93 None taken. Since I have no idea what you just said. It s attractive because it validates your own importance, allows you to do whatever the hell you want,and it can t be disproven.Teaching drafting runs into the same problem.I m going to assume here thatyou do accept that other people exist. Sure.I m not much for lecturing myself, Kip said.He grinned.Gavin squinted at the horizon.He d rigged up two lenses separated by an arm s length and mounted onthe luxin canopy so he could scan the seas.He must have seen something, because he banked theskimmer hard left port! Hard to port.When he turned back, he d apparently missed Kip s quip. Anyway, where were we? Ah.The problem with teaching drafting is that color exists it s separatefrom us but we only know it through our experience of it.We don t know why, but somemen subchromats can t differentiate between red and green.Other subchromats can t differentiatebetween blue and yellow.Obviously, when you tell a man that he can t see a color he s never seen, hemight not believe you.Everyone else who tells him red and green are different colors could be justplaying a cruel joke on him.Or he must accept the existence of something he ll never see.There aretheological implications, but I ll spare you.To make it simple, if there are color-deficientmen incidentally, it is almost always men why could there not also be those who are extremelycolor-sensitive, superchromats? And it turns out there are.But they re almost always women.In fact,about half of women can differentiate between colors at an extreme level.For men, it s one in tens ofthousands. Wait, so men lose both ways? Blind to colors more often and really good at seeing them less often?That s not fair. But we can lift heavy things.Kip grumbled. And pee standing up, right? Very useful around poison ivy.I was on a mission with Karris this one time& Gavin whistled. She didn t, Kip said, horrified. You thought she was mad at me back on the river? Somehow, it was my fault that time, too. Gavingrinned. Anyway, to wend my way back to my point, most of us can see the normal range of colors.Hmm, tautology there. What? Kip asked. That s a digression too far.Just because you can see a color doesn t mean you can draft it.But if youcan t see a color, you ll draft it poorly.So men aren t as accurate when drafting certain colors assuperchromat women, which is half of them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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