The Black Prism

Chapter 54

The prisoner studied the dead man. “I’m going to kill you,” he said quietly.

“I don’t die easy,” the dead man said, his mouth twitching. He was seated opposite Dazen, in his wall, knees folded, hands in his lap, his pose a mockery of Dazen’s own. He glanced at the carefully woven rag in Dazen’s lap. “Who would have thought?” the dead man mused. “Gavin Guile, so patient, so quiet, so content doing women’s work.”

Dazen studied his handiwork. Woven of his own hair as tight as he could manage with calm cool blue flowing through his body, he wasn’t even sure how long he’d spent on it. Weeks, maybe. It made almost a skullcap, a small bowl. He studied the shiny interior. Finding, perhaps, a flaw, he took a long but perfectly round fingernail and scraped it around his nose, over his forehead in methodical strokes. Harvesting the accumulated skin and, more importantly, the precious oil with another fingernail, Dazen smeared the oil carefully onto the flaw.

He was only going to get one chance. After years and years, he wasn’t going to mess it up.

With a steady hand and skin filled with blue, he gathered more oil and smeared it on the wall directly over the dead man’s face.

“This doesn’t change anything, Gavin,” the dead man said.

“No, not yet,” he said.

He stood and drafted a blade. He cut off a hank of his greasy hair. He spat on it and scrubbed it against his dirty skin, getting it as foul as possible.

“You don’t need to do this,” the dead man said. “It’s madness.”

“It’s victory,” Dazen said. He drew the blue luxin blade smoothly across his chest.

“If you’re going to kill yourself, the wrist or the neck would work better,” the dead man said.

Dazen ignored him. With dirty fingers, he pulled the cut open and tucked the putrid mass of hair and dirt under the flap of skin. Blood cascaded down his chest, the red almost tempting him to try drafting directly, but it wasn’t enough, he knew that from experience. He put a hand to his chest and pressed on the wound, holding it closed, slowing the bleeding.

In a few sleeps, the cell would be cleansed with Dazen’s weekly bath. Soon thereafter, depending on how well he had planned and guessed, he would either escape or be dead.

As long as he held the blue, he found he didn’t care much one way or the other.